A ”two-speed” business response to climate change is emerging, with the financial sector well ahead of energy and utility companies in disclosing their emissions and taking steps to reduce them, a review has found.
The annual survey of Australia’s and New Zealand’s biggest companies by the Carbon Disclosure Project, released today, finds 54 per cent of ASX 100 companies that responded to the review already have their own emissions reduction targets in place, falling to 45 per cent across the ASX 200.
And just 4 per cent of companies told the survey that carbon pricing was a high risk to their business, while 33 per cent rated the risk as medium or higher.
The snapshot of industry’s response to climate change comes ahead of the historic vote in the Senate tomorrow to pass Labor’s carbon price scheme.
The survey also reveals 386 measures already being taken to reduce emissions across 86 per cent of responding companies, with energy-efficiency programs the most popular.
The annual survey asks companies to measure and disclose what climate change means for their business and ranks them on the quality of information they release. Half of ASX 200 companies responded to this year’s survey, up 3 per cent from last year.
Carbon Disclosure Project director James Day told BusinessDay there were good signs in the large number of measures in place to reduce emissions across the S&P/ASX 200 Index companies.
But Mr Day said while companies with good records in previous years’ surveys had continued to make gains, other highly emitting industries such as energy and major industrial processing were lagging, with some individual companies such as energy giant AGL notable exceptions.
The survey found of all the Australian and New Zealand companies that responded, 85 per cent of utilities and 83 per cent of all energy companies did not have any carbon emission reduction target.
Companies given the highest scores for disclosure of the climate change impact on the business were CFS Retail Property Trust, Commonwealth Property Office Fund and Westpac.
Overall, greenhouse gas emissions fell from companies responding to the survey in both 2010 and 2011 by 16 million tonnes.
The report was prepared by economic consultants Deloitte, which carried out the survey on behalf of 551 global institutional investors with assets of $71 trillion.
