New Corporate Push on Global Warming
NEW YORK (AP) -- The world's biggest companies are making climate change a bigger priority, in part through more widespread disclosure of carbon emissions, an annual report to be released Monday shows. Former President Clinton was scheduled to join the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project on Monday to announce the results of its latest checkup on the world's biggest companies and how they plan to deal with the risks and opportunities associated with greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.
With companies developing innovative ways to fight global warming, Business 2.0's Erick Schonfeld talks with the founder of Cree about how LED lights may change the way we see things. "The big thing this year is the huge increase in the level of seriousness with which climate change is being incorporated into the corporate strategy of companies," Carbon Disclosure Project Chief Executive Paul Dickinson said.
The nonprofit is supported by 315 institutional investors, including Merrill Lynch & Co. (Charts, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500) and the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Those investors have a total of more than $41 trillion under management. Among the 500 companies ranked by the Financial Times newspaper as the world's largest by market capitalization, 75 percent responded to this year's survey, up from 47 percent when the survey started four years ago.
The response rate by companies in North America rose in all industry sectors, and nine of 10 sectors had a response rate of more than 50 percent. The increased willingness by companies to disclose their carbon emissions and find ways to reduce them reflects the changing political and regulatory landscape over energy efficiency. Of the companies that responded, 76 percent implemented programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, compared with 48 percent last year.
This past Monday, the Carbon Disclosure Project also was launching the Climate Disclosure Leadership Index, a smaller group of 68 companies including Citigroup Inc., (Charts, Fortune 500) Wal-Mart Stores Inc., (Charts, Fortune 500) The Coca-Cola Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. (Charts, Fortune 500) and General Motors Corp. Wal-Mart was expected to announce a partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project on Monday, and News Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch was scheduled to speak by teleconference.