ASX firms snub climate change
Wednesday, 30 July 2008 12:20pm
An Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS) report found more than half of S&P/ASX 200 listed companies, representing over $605 billion in market capitalisation, are not taking action on climate change issues.
The EIRIS report identified nearly half of the companies in the S&P/ASX 200 had a ‘high' or ‘very high' impact on climate change.
While one third of those high impact firms publicly recognised the company's responsibility to address climate change, just five per cent publicly committed or disclosed a quantitative target to reduce the impact of their operations.
Indeed, almost two fifths of those identified as high impact firms barely responded to climate change, with some companies providing no strategy at all.
Although, nearly 40 per cent of those high impact firms could provide a corporate climate change commitment, only four per cent of companies linked the climate change strategy to board or senior management remuneration.
From those firms identified as high risk, 39 per cent disclosed absolute Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions data and 19 per cent could disclose normalised data.
Yet EIRIS found only 11 per cent of the data had been externally verified and only a quarter of firms were able to exhibit some methodology.
Michael Hobbs
