By
Greentech Lead Team: 58 percent of companies have not heard of
carbon accounting. 80 percent of companies don’t monitor their company’s carbon
footprint, according to a global carbon accounting survey.
The
survey was done by Epicor Software Corporation, a provider of business software
solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organizations.
Although
the CEO is the most likely person to be responsible for a company’s green
strategy, 50 percent of companies surveyed don’t have any C-level involvement
at all in their carbon accounting initiatives. 85 percent cannot report the
level of carbon their company has consumed in each of the last six months, and
nearly 70 percent believe that they accurately account for less than 25 percent
of their company’s carbon consumption.
With
Australia introducing the new tax legislation on carbon emissions, and new
regulations soon being introduced in California, the momentum behind requiring
corporate energy management is well under way.
The
survey compiled responses from nearly 1,000 companies worldwide. The majority
(48 percent) of respondents were from organizations in the manufacturing
industry. Most (42 percent) respondents were from organizations with 100 to
1,000 employees and organizations with $50 million in annual revenue, or less
(43 percent).
“It’s
quite worrying to think that a third of all companies don’t know whether they
are under legal obligation to report emissions and we want to take this
opportunity to urge the industry as a whole to take responsibility and help
educate businesses about energy management,” said Chris Purcell, product
marketing manager for Epicor.
Carbon
reporting will happen irrespective of any personal opinions about global
warming; those businesses that prepare now for the reporting that will be
legally required of them in the near future will have a clear competitive
advantage over laggards.
Energy
management is not a distraction to a company’s core business. Businesses can
gain cost and energy savings from sustainability investments and the growth of
emission trading schemes will only increase the need for companies to
understand how carbon accounting will impact their bottom line.