[Corporations] Yet another reason the corporation as legal-cum-technological organization must go

[Eubulides]

<http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1616722.ece>

World's leading companies lack plan on climate change
By Saeed Shah
Published: 18 September 2006

Most of the world's 500 biggest companies have no programme in place,
with explicit targets, to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases,
despite mounting evidence that the earth is heading towards
environmental catastrophe.

The most comprehensive study of the environmental behaviour of the
world's biggest corporations, by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP),
found that emissions from these businesses are rising at an alarming
rate and most are not acting to tackle the issue.

Among the worst performers in the research, which rates companies on a
scoring system, were Pepsi, the soft drinks giant, Nintendo, the
computer gaming group, and the financial services giant American
Express. Among the 33 British companies, the company doing the least,
by far, to address the issue is BAE Systems, the arms manufacturer
that employs thousands of people in this country.

CDP is an international coalition of institutional investors, which
together manage assets worth $31.5 trillion. It includes the likes of
Aberdeen Asset Management, Hermes Investment Management and HSBC in
the UK. The research, which examines companies in the FT500 global
index, is based on the extent to which businesses are aware of climate
change issues and how much they are doing to reduce their emissions of
harmful greenhouse gases, rather than which companies have the
greatest absolute level of emissions.

Of the 500 biggest companies in the world, 360 provided information to
the CDP and although 87 per cent of them recognised climate change as
a key risk, 52 per cent of these businesses had no targets to reduce
their emissions.

Even more worrying for the researchers was the 140 companies that did
not provide any data, suggesting an even lower level of concern about
the environment. Among these were Honda, Bridgestone, Apple Computers,
Goldman Sachs, Kellogg, Philips, Google and Yahoo!.

Counting together those with no reduction programme and those
unwilling to provide information, 65 per cent of the world's biggest
businesses have not implemented an emissions reduction programme. The
companies surveyed are responsible for 10 per cent of the world's
annual greenhouse gases emissions, producing 3.3 billion tonnes of
carbon dioxide this year.

James Cameron, chairman of the CDP said: "The findings confirm that
awareness of the risks and opportunities posed by climate change has
risen dramatically among investors and the companies they own. But
awareness alone will not drive the changes in investment and corporate
strategy needed if disastrous climate change is to be avoided. For
that, investors will have to put the CDP data to work."

On the CDP scoring system, the British companies did relatively well,
averaging a score of 75, with the exception of BAE, which scored just
25 out of 100. The UK companies scoring below average were Standard
Chartered, Scottish & Southern, SABMiller, Royal Bank of Scotland,
Prudential, O2, Lloyds TSB and BAT.