Large companies that promise to become climate neutral actually only reduce their emissions to a limited extent. It is often not clear how they intend to implement their climate plans.
This is evident from a study that Carbon Market Watch will present on Monday. The research group looked at the climate commitments of 24 internationally operating companies. All but one pledge to become carbon neutral by 2050 at the latest, yet collectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by just 36 percent over the next few decades, the report said.
A large part of the emissions appear to fall outside the targets of the companies, or must be offset by CO2 compensation. But there is no realistic way to offset so many emissions by planting trees, for example, says Silke Mooldijk of the NewClimate Institute, which conducted the study. “Then we would need two to four times the planet Earth. That is not going to happen.”
The companies’ climate plans together also do not meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the researchers say. According to Carbon Market Watch, stricter supervision is needed of companies’ climate plans and the claims they make to consumers.
Research by regulator ACM showed last year that many consumers do not understand what is meant when companies say that a product is ‘climate neutral’. The EU is working on regulations, but it is not yet clear how exactly they will work.
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Ahold in the middle bracket
Ahold Delhaize is the only Dutch company included in the Carbon Market Watch study. Albert Heijn’s parent company scores in the middle bracket. Ahold has relatively ambitious goals for 2030 and 2050 and, unlike other companies, also takes the emissions of suppliers into account.
There are good plans to reduce its own emissions, but it is a lot less clear how Ahold will ensure that suppliers emit less greenhouse gases. Milieudefensie was also very critical of this last year.
Ahold aims to reduce emissions by more than 80 percent by 2050. CO2 compensation is then still required for the remaining 18 percent. According to the researchers, it is unclear whether Ahold can credibly offset those emissions.
Maersk scores well, Samsung does not
Shipping giant Maersk is the most climate-friendly in the survey. The Danish company is making a credible pledge to halve emissions by 2030 and to be nearly zero-emission by 2040.
Much less ambitious, for example, is Samsung, which only counts a small part of its emissions in its climate promises. The same applies to the French supermarket chain Carrefour, which does not include most of its stores and the emissions of suppliers in its promise to become climate neutral.
The researchers hope that there will be a clear standard that obliges companies to make their emissions and climate plans transparent. “For financial disclosures, that is already standardized internationally,” says Thomas Day of the NewClimate Institute. “We also need that for climate publications.”
