Amazon, Google and Ikea among firms falling short on climate change progress, report claims

Amazon, Ikea and Google are among the companies accused of not doing enough to tackle climate change, according to a damning new report.

Climate pledges made by most of the world’s top companies commit to reducing their emissions only by 40 per cent on average, and not by 100 per cent as they suggest in their “net-zero” and “carbon neutral” claims, NewClimate Institute says.

The analysis, conducted by a Germany-based independent organisation that promotes global warming mitigation measures – assessed the transparency and integrity of the headline climate pledges made by 25 major companies operating across different sectors and geographies.

Of the 25 top firms assessed in the report, the analysts say only one company’s net-zero pledge has “reasonable integrity”, three with “moderate”, 10 with “low”, and the other 12 had “very low” integrity.

These 25 companies, according to the report, account for 5 per cent of the global greenhouse-gas emissions, suggesting their plans to a net-zero transition can help lead global efforts to a carbon-neutral world.

Google, Amazon, Volkswagen, and Walmart are some of the companies failing to change quickly enough, the report says, and branded as having ‘low integrity’.

The worst performers include BMW Group, Carrefour and Nestle, with the report claiming they have ‘very low intergrity’.

Thirteen of the 25 companies that have backed their net-zero headline pledges with explicit emission reduction targets commit, on average, to reduce their full value chain emissions from 2019 by only 40 per cent, the analysts say.

They say the remaining 12 have no specific commitments to reduce their emissions for their net-zero target year.

Three of the companies, including Maersk, Vodafone, and Deutsche Telekom, “clearly commit” to deep decarbonisation of over 90 per cent of their full value chain emissions by their respective net-zero and zero emission target years, while at least five firms only commit to reducing their emissions by less than 15 per cent, the report says.

While the headline pledges of these companies serve as a useful long-term vision, substantiated by specific short-term emission reduction goals, the analysts say “none of these commitments have a high degree of integrity overall”.

As more and more people seek green products, companies across the world face pressure to reduce their carbon emissions and environmentally friendly ways to conduct their operations.

“As pressure on companies to act on climate change rises, their ambitious-sounding headline claims all too often lack real substance, which can mislead both consumers and the regulators that are core to guiding their strategic direction. Even companies that are doing relatively well exaggerate their actions,” Thomas Day, lead author of the report from the NewClimate Institute, said in a statement.

“We set out to uncover as many replicable good practices as possible, but we were frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies’ claims,” Mr Day added.

The researchers believe the pledges made by these companies at the current point of the climate crisis, really matter since major firms with bold climate pledges can be “highly influential”.

“Their share of emissions and market activity make them obvious role models and linchpins for transformation in their respective sectors and geographies,” Mr Day said.

“These companies have the capability, and with that the responsibility, to demonstrate unambiguous leadership. Global decarbonisation objectives could be made or broken by the integrity of their commitments,” he added.

Commenting on the practices followed by specific companies to reach their climate goals, Mr Day said Maersk’s commitment to reduce emissions across its value chain by 90-95 per cent by 2040, seems to be an ambitious target for a sector where deep decarbonisation technologies are “not yet sufficiently matured”.

“For setting interim targets, Sony stands out. Although Sony’s commitment to a 100% emission reduction by 2050 includes an undefined role for offsetting, the company uses this longer-term vision to guide the formulation of much more specific short- and mid-term targets,” he added.

Silke Mooldijk, a co-author of the report, believes Google stands out in its efforts at renewable energy procurement with the company aiming for a 100 per cent hourly match between consumption and local renewable energy generation by 2030.

“Google therefore recognises the current mismatch and issues that often arise with renewable energy procurement, but also shows ambition and innovation to overcome these. Other companies are looking to follow suit,” Ms Mooldijk added.

The report underscores the importance of the companies to set much clearer and more ambitious short term emission reduction commitments for the next 5-10 years.

While longer-term pledges have become the focus of companies’ climate commitments, “possibly because net zero as a concept is in trend,” and they can be long-term visions, the researchers say these can only be helpful when accompanied with significant ambitious interim targets that require immediate action.

“Specific targets over short- and medium-term periods that require immediate action and accountability are of primary importance and should be the main focus,” Mr Day added.

The researchers say companies making public climate pledges should also responsibly disclose data to back up the declared goals.

Currently, they say the quality of disclosure is highly variable with data often missing in the public domain, either inconsistent or fragmented.

“Even companies that are doing relatively well are sometimes exaggerating their ambition,” Sybrig Smit, another co-author of the report added.

“We hope that companies will react constructively to our findings, to replicate the good practices that have been identified, and address any open issues,” Ms Smit added.

Amazon, whose net-zero pledge was deemed “low integrity” by the report, said it is committed to reaching its target by 2040, adding that in the interim it is planning to power its operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025, deliver half its shipments with net zero carbon by 2030, and deploy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2030, The Washington Post reported.

Some companies reportedly said they disagree with some of the methods used in the analysis but added that they are committed to taking action to reduce emissions and curb climate change.