What do Unilever PLC, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. have in common? Their net-zero promises do not add up to net zero, a new report says.
It’s not just these three companies, either. The report, published by the New Climate Institute and Carbon Market Watch, finds that 25 of the world’s most valuable companies, which together accrued $3.2 trillion in revenues in 2020 and accounted for 5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2019, have climate plans that are weaker than how they’ve been marketed so far.
The report says that nearly half of the 25 businesses, including Nestle SA and JBS SA, don’t have specific commitments to reduce emissions by their target net-zero year. The remaining 13 plan to cut emissions across the value chain by 40% on average, rather than fully axe them as their pledges suggest. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, Vodafone Group PLC and Deutsche Telekom AG are the only ones on track to near-complete decarbonization, the authors find.
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