Two Thirds Of The World’s Top Corporations Have Set Emissions Reduction Targets Or Renewable Energy Goals

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/12/10/1309371/two-thirds-of-the-worlds-top-corporations-have-set-emissions-reductions-targets-or-renewable-energy-goals/

By Stephen Lacey on Dec 10, 2012

Last year, $260 billion was invested in clean energy globally, marking the one trillionth dollar put into the sector since 2004 and the first time that clean energy saw more investment than fossil fuels.

As a new report shows, much of that activity is being driven by large corporations that are setting internal sustainability goals that include targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or targets to procure renewable energy and energy efficiency.

According to a new analysis from Ceres, WWF, and Calvert Investments, 68 percent of companies in the Global 100 list have set targets to lower global warming pollution or purchase clean energy. In addition, 58 percent of companies in the Fortune 100 list have set similar targets.

In the past, when corporations announced renewable energy goals, they were mostly a public relations opportunity. Instead of investing in projects themselves, companies would buy tradeable renewable energy credits — an offsetting mechanism that many criticize for doing little to bring new renewables online. But that dynamic is changing. As this report points out, large corporations are now choosing to directly purchase renewable electricity from project developers, or are even building on-site projects themselves. As the report points out, this is an important and positive shift in corporate culture:

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But one thing is certain: the planet is warming at an accelerated pace and many of the world’s leading companies understand that they need both adapt to and mitigate the problem. According to a survey of 400 of the biggest global companies released by the Carbon Disclosure Project in September, 37 percent of corporations say they are already seeing the impact of climate change on their business — up from 10 percent in 2010.

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This latest report reminds us many of the world’s largest companies and investors actually recognize we have a problem and are trying to do something about it. That’s more than we can say for our policymakers here in the U.S.