As More Companies Make Net-Zero Pledges, Some Aren ’t as Good as They Sound

At COP26, the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, governments and businesses put forward ambitious-sounding plans to de-carbonize. But a closer look beneath the surface shows many corporate “net-zero” plans are not nearly as good as they sound. The Net Zero Tracker, compiled by a team of non-profit organizations and research labs, assesses companies’ environmental commitments based on information made publicly available by businesses themselves. It recently found that 622 of the 2,000 largest publicly-traded companies in the world by revenue have technically committed to a net-zero strategy. However, the Net Zero Tracker team also found that the actual policies of many of these companies undermine any real change at achieving zero-carbon operations. Often, that’s because they do not count emissions produced by their supply chains (which can be significant) or because they depend on unreliable or unproven strategies to offset their carbon production. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] To understand the first of these, you need to understand the standard framework to measure emissions, called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which defines three broad categories of emissions associated with business operations: Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, such as company delivery trucks. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions—say, the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by a company. Scope 3 inc...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized biztech2030 climate change Londontime Second click Source Type: news