German chemicals giant BASF has come top of a global rankings index measuring the standard of public emissions reporting across the globe, although the study also revealed well over half of companies are filing incomplete data or are guilty of providing no public emissions figures.
The ET Global Carbon Ranking, published today by UK NGO the Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO), cover the world's 1,270 largest companies, ranking them on their carbon intensity and the amount of emissions information declared.
Following on from its UK and European rankings released earlier this year, the EIO's global rankings aim to cover all corporate emissions, including Scope 3 emissions such as transport and other indirect sources.
BASF lands top position in both the global and European rankings, up from 96th in February, by virtue of being the only company reporting under all 15 Scope 3 categories as outlined by the new Greenhouse Gas Protocol measurement standard released last month
"Scope 3 emissions make up a huge percentage of your total output," Sam Gill, operational director of EIO, told BusinessGreen. "If you're using the standard, you should be using all 15 categories. So if you're not reporting on them, are we getting the full picture?"
British mining and natural resource group Anglo American, and South African-based materials company Gold Fields, both of which reported on eight categories, fill second and third places.
Completing the top five are French communications firm Alcatel-Lucent, which covered seven, and the Brazilian branch of Spanish bank Santander, which had data on six categories.
UK firms Xstrata, British Land, Reckitt Benckiser and Centrica all make it into the global and European top 20.
The bottom four places are all taken up by utilities, with US firms First Energy, Edison International and Entergy occupying positions 798 to 800, and Russia's Inter ROA following behind, none of which reported any information. Power company Fluor completes the bottom five.
Leading the way in North America are Baxter International, UPS, Praxair, Bank of America and Du Pont, while the Asia-Pacific rankings are headed by Westpac banking, National Australia Bank, Transurban Group, Telstra and Wesfarmers insurance. The first non-Australian company is Sony at seven. Of all these, only Baxter accounted for more than five Scope 3 emission categories.
EIO has also covered the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – for the first time.
The top two places are taken by Gold Fields and Santander Brazil, followed by fellow Brazilan companies Vale and Itauunibanco, and Indian firm Infrastructure Development Finance, which reported on six, five and four categories respectively.
The scale of the reporting challenge is further emphasised by the fact that 55 per cent of companies in the ET Global 800 reported incomplete data or no data at all, which rose to 75 per cent in Asia-Pacific.
Meanwhile, only 21 per cent of the ET Global 800 reported public, complete and independently verified data.
The ranking will be open to appeal before being frozen for the next year on 28 November, the first day of the Durban climate summit.
The EIO hopes the rankings will put pressure on companies to improve their emissions reporting and will tie the data in with a global version of its Environmental Tracking Index Series, which provides investors with data weighted by carbon intensity and reporting.
"The required emissions reductions and investment in low-carbon technologies can be achieved by creating a system that influences share price according to the environmental costs of a company's actions," Gill said.
"That's the next step, but we needed these rankings first. If there's interest from investors we would get that up and running as soon as we can."
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