World's Leading Companies are Failing Over Climate Pledges: Research

Last year in the run-up to the United Nations Climate summit in Glasgow, UK many firms put their foot out by taking the pledge of zero to neutral carbon emissions till the coming decades. However, some of the biggest firms in the world are failing dramatically over the climatical pledge. This includes 25 international firms like Google, Nestle, Ikea, Apple which are falling extremely behind in keeping their net-zero carbon and greenhouse gases emission pledges.

Since last year November, a renewal can be seen to focus on accountability. It is important since these companies are exaggerating about their progress of carbon emission and their transparency regarding the subject is also low.

A German-based Institute assessed the proclaimed emission targets of the companies and found that only about 3 – The Danish shipping giant Maersk, the UK communications firm Vodafone and the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom of the 25 international firms are actually on the path of reducing their carbon/greenhouse gases emission by 90% by their respective target dates.

A recent study showed the average net emission of the corporations will reduce only about 40% emission, not 100% as suggested by their net claims. A spokesperson from Amazon said “We set these ambitious targets because we know that climate change is a serious problem, and action is needed now more than ever. Amazon is on a path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of our original target.”

On the other hand, over 1000 employees of Google signed a letter demanding a reduction in the company’s carbon emission including net-zero carbon emission by the year 2030. 

The letter said, “We, the undersigned Google workers, in accordance with the gravity and urgency of the global climate crisis and its disproportionate harm to marginalized people, call on Google to commit to and release a company-wide climate plan,” The CEO of the company addressed some of them demanding workers by saying that reaching net-zero carbon emission by 2030 seems like a reasonable timeline for the accomplishment of such target.