Carbon Neutrality | Nearly 60% of the largest companies promise to achieve it, but the step is high

(Paris) Nearly 60% of the world’s largest listed companies have made carbon neutrality commitments, a figure that is increasing, but which in no way guarantees that they have a serious plan to achieve it, the Net Zero Tracker consortium wrote on Monday.

In 2023, during the previous edition of the analysis carried out by the research consortium, which presents itself as independent and brings together in particular Data-Driven EnviroLab (DDL), The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), NewClimate Institute and Oxford Net Zero, it was just under half of the 1,977 listed companies studied that presented such commitments.

“This year, it continues to increase,” particularly among companies headquartered in Asia (from 118 to 184 in Japan, from 27 to 48 in China, from 22 to 41 in South Korea, etc.), but “there are still many entities that have not made any commitments” in terms of decarbonization, underlines Takeshi Kuramochi, analyst at the NewClimate Institute, during a videoconference.

“There are still substantial problems and companies still have a lot of room for improvement,” he adds.

Today, most companies that promise to be carbon neutral, or to be carbon neutral by 2050 or earlier, actually continue to emit greenhouse gases and use carbon offsets to reduce their carbon footprint to zero on paper, for example by funding reforestation.

But numerous scientific studies have shown that this carbon offset system is far from keeping its promises, and is even misleading or fraudulent.

Only 5% of companies (4% in 2023) meet all 8 criteria assessed by Net Zero Tracker, which includes some of those formulated by experts on behalf of the UN, such as setting specific objectives, including greenhouse gases other than CO₂ (such as methane), prioritise emissions reduction over offsetting, commit to a transition away from fossil fuels and use offsets sparingly.

“Progress has been made, but we need much more! We need to be more ambitious,” insisted Catherine McKenna, chair of the UN expert group on “net zero” commitments.

Experts recommend reducing CO emissions as much as possible₂ (over 90%), and to compensate only those which are incompressible, with rigorous CO capture projects₂ For example.