Centrica, Reckitt Benckiser, Royal Dutch Shell and Unilever are among Britain’s most responsible companies on climate change, reports the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).
This year’s annual CDP FTSE350 report, which scores the climate change performances of the UK’s largest companies, notes a ‘year-on-year improvement in the quantity and quality of climate change data disclosed’. Altogether the number of published emissions forecasts rose from seven per cent in 2008 to 30 per cent in 2009.
The CDP methodology, which measures both performance and disclosure, makes Shell the sector leader in energy, Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever in consumer staples, and Centrica in utilities.
Other sector leaders were building group Interserve, National Grid, Scottish and Southern Energy, Tesco and United Utilities. All were identified as ‘incorporating expected regulation into forward thinking and planning’.
The report observes, however, that only 35 per cent of FTSE350 companies have disclosed emissions reduction targets, lower than the Global 500 disclosure rate and European figures published recently.
In addition, despite this year’s 67 per cent response rate, a number of high-profile businesses did not answer CDP requests for information, including British American Tobacco, Carphone Warehouse and the UK-listed international mining company Kazakmhys, which operates principally in Kazakhstan.
