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Following today’s announcement by the UK Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) that a decision has not yet been reached on the introduction of mandatory reporting for companies’ greenhouse gas emissions and other climate change-related information, Paul Simpson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) says:
“The announcement to delay a decision on the introduction of mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reporting for UK companies is both surprising and disappointing. By failing to make a concrete call, the UK Government is not responding to market needs.
“This latest announcement is effectively a decision not to introduce the mandatory reporting of climate change information at this time. Along with two thirds of the British companies that responded to the Defra consultation on the subject, CDP fully supports mandatory carbon reporting by UK businesses and believes that the collection of accurate and comparable information from UK companies on climate change is a crucial step toward the creation of a low carbon economy.
“Furthermore, measuring and reporting climate change information is widely acknowledged to lead to performance improvements and reductions in carbon emissions. It could therefore help UK Plc to meet the carbon budgets. Over 3,700 companies from the world’s largest economies already report their climate change information through the Carbon Disclosure Project’s global system in order to assess their climate change risk and opportunity. We and the business leaders that use our transformative model will continue in our efforts to protect natural capital regardless of government decisions but more galvanised and harmonised support would be hugely welcomed.”
