Performance League table ranks UK companies’ carbon emissions

The Environment Agency has published the largest ever public disclosure of UK companies’ carbon emissions. The Performance League Table ranks the carbon performance of over 2000 organisations that fall under the government’s CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme legislation.

The Performance League table shows that 22 organisations came equal first by scoring 100% in the Early Action Metrics. This group included British American Tobacco, CBRE, Invesco and Manchester United FC.

CBRE – one of the UK’s largest third-party managers of commercial property – reported a total of 4,004t of carbon dioxide for the 2010/11 compliance year across its UK portfolio. One hundred percent of these emissions are covered by the Carbon Trust Standard.

Andrew Baker, Lead Sustainability Consultant, EMEA, at CBRE said: “Being ranked joint top of the league is a great endorsement of our internal energy-management processes and underlines our commitment to carbon reduction. Ultimately the league table is one of a number of indicators that should be used to analyse a company’s overall sustainability performance; but we should congratulate those companies which have successfully demonstrated a proactive approach and placed highly in the inaugural league table.”

However, some 803 organisations scored zero points in the Early Action Metrics, with Zurich Financial Services – by virtue of alphabetical order – coming at the bottom of the league table. This group of zero scorers included big brand names such as Xerox, Virgin Atlantic, Goldman Sachs, Kraft Foods, ING, Diageo, Astra Zenica and BMW. Government departments that also scored zero include the Home Office and HMRC.

In a statement on its position in the Performance League table, Zurich said: “It is important to remember the table does not yet take into account to what extent an organisation has managed to reduce its carbon emissions and is solely based on early specific actions that organisations have taken in preparation for the scheme. Therefore, it is not currently a complete representation of what companies are doing to address carbon emissions.

“Zurich is fully committed to tackling climate change. Our use of green electricity (generated by wind, water, waves and biomass) has dramatically increased since 2005, with all of our self-occupied properties in the UK using a combination of renewable electricity and good-quality combined heat and power.

“As a result of [a number of initiatives] we have reduced our combined energy consumption at year-end 2010 to 39 million kWh from 108 million kWh in 1999, a reduction of 69 million kWh, representing a saving of 64%.”

The league table does not to disclose those organisations that failed compliance with the legislation altogether, and now face hefty fines starting from £45,000.

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme was introduced in 2010 to provide an incentive to medium and large-energy users to reduce their carbon emissions. From 1 April 2012, participants will need to buy one carbon allowance for each tonne of carbon reported under the scheme, priced at £12 per allowance. The scheme faced severe criticism from industry when the coalition changed the rules so that the allowance payments would go to the treasury instead of being recycled back to the best-performing participants.

James Ramsay, Commercial Director at carbon management company Carbon Clear commented: “This is the first time that UK companies have been forced to disclose publicly their carbon data, and the results are really quite extraordinary. The fact that over 40% – including many big brand names – failed to score a single point is a clear indicator that they are not even monitoring their energy data. It shows that there is huge room for improvement.”

Executive Chairman of the Environmental Industries Commission Adrian Wilkes, said: “40% of participants failed to make any moves on improving their energy consumption with 803 companies scoring zero points on the Early Action Metric. That is of serious concern.

“Widespread support for the CRC took a knock when the Chancellor announced that monies from the Scheme would not be recycled into the Green Investment Bank or similar, and that the Scheme will instead become a straight up tax. A robust performance league table, and potentially sizeable reductions in energy bills, now remain the key drivers to uptake and support for the Scheme.

“Part of the reason for not seeing a greater take up of the CRC could be a lack of confidence in the Scheme following the Chancellor’s announcement, but the policy has seeing some sizeable chopping and changing over the last year and the uncertainty that this created – especially in terms of companies setting aside large investment funds for energy efficiency – is likely to have been a more significant factor.”

The metrics used to assess the league table positions this year were based on two separate elements, the first being certification under the Carbon Trust Standard or another approved equivalent scheme. The second element is the percentage of an organisation’s electricity and gas supplies that was measured via voluntarily installed automatic meter reading meters and dynamic unmetered supply in the 2010/11 reporting year.

In addition, the answers to four Corporate Responsibility questions have been published which provide more information about each participant’s carbon-management activities.

However, many commentators in the construction and property sectors believe we need more sector-specific data in order to truly drive organisational change.

Paul King, CEO at UK-GBC commented: “The CRC League Table is well intentioned and could be an effective means of driving performance, but it doesn’t compare like with like. That’s why, for the property sector, we need to see a roll out of Display Energy Certificates showing actual energy use for both landlords and tenants, so we can see who is doing a good job of managing their carbon emissions, and who is not doing their bit to reduce the impact of the UK’s gas-guzzling buildings.”

The launch of this league table comes at a time when organisations are putting an increased focus on measurement and reporting around sustainability. The recent publication of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Construction and Real Estate Sector Supplement (GRI CRESS) and the work of UK-GBC’s Green Building Guidance Task Group show that more than ever, companies are aware of the need to accurately assess their carbon and sustainability performance in order to drive improvements.

The second league table, to be published a year from now, will incorporate more information on actual carbon emission reductions by incorporating Absolute and Growth Metrics. The Absolute Metric is based on each participant’s percentage carbon emissions change, and the Growth Metric gives recognition and provides context for organisations that are growing or declining by accounting for the percentage change in emissions per unit turnover (or revenue expenditure for the public sector).

You can view the league table HERE