Lots of companies talk a good game about cutting planet-heating greenhouse emissions but their disclosures and targets have tended to focus on the emissions over which they have direct control and which are easiest to measure. That's fine in an industry such as cement, where the bulk of carbon pollution occurs during the production process. From an environmental perspective these direct, or "Scope 1," emissions are the main problem caused by these particular companies.
In the past, so-called "Scope 3" emissions - the pollution contained in products sold to customers or in goods and services purchased from suppliers - either weren't calculated or were seen as someone else's problem. Thanks to pressure from institutional investors and activists, plus leadership from a few enlightened chief executives, corporate attitudes about this subject are evolving fast.
The European Union's new guidelines on climate reporting also recommend that large companies disclose customer and supplier emissions. Banks and insurers, whose direct emissions are typically pretty negligible, should focus on their counterparties' emissions, the guidelines say. Unfortunately, this is not yet legally binding.
I'm not knocking these companies; at least they're disclosing these emissions and some are setting targets to reduce them. Cummins plans to reduce absolute lifetime emissions from newly sold products by 25 per cent by 2030, for example.
Aren’t the biggest companies Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft? They have our data!
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