Companies must do more to cut their carbon emissions, research study finds.
Following the most comprehensive study to date into climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we worked with our good friends at Carbon Credentials to investigate how well UK companies are doing when it comes to reducing energy consumption and cutting their carbon footprint.
Our team designed and commissioned the study on 2000 people, comprising of heads of sustainability, business owners and employees, and found that only 10% of companies have set a carbon reduction target. Over half (57%) of employees say their employers aren’t doing enough to involve them in cutting their carbon footprint at work with a massive 74% having no clue what their organisation’s carbon targets are. As a result,
nearly three quarters of staff have taken their own initiative to reduce their organisation’s energy consumption. A lack of leadership support, insufficient funding and competing inter-departmental budgets and resources were cited as the biggest challenges preventing organisations from rolling out successful sustainability programmes.
We crafted these findings into a compelling news story, generating mass national awareness around the need for businesses to take urgent action to cut their carbon emissions especially in light of the IPCC’s warming recommendations, striving to save the world from climate catastrophe.
Carbon Credential’s CEO, Paul Lewis, was quoted extensively throughout the national and trade media, advising on the importance of setting sustainable targets – preferably science based targets – to give an organisation a well-defined pathway to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the level of decarbonisation required to keep global temperature increase to the recommended 1.5°C.
