An assessment of climate action by high-carbon global corporations

Corporations are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions1–3 and an important actor in mitigating climate change.4 This paper presents and analyses a database of corporate climate action, which provides an up-to-date assessment of companies’ carbon management practices, as well as systematically benchmarking companies’ emissions pathways against international targets. Our analysis covers 138 companies in 7 high-emitting sectors, accounting for 21% of emissions from all listed companies globally.5 While a majority of companies has implemented basic carbon management practices, we find that less than half of them have implemented more strategic practices. Further analysis indicates companies separate into a class that hardly undertakes any carbon management practices, and a class that undertakes most. Perhaps surprisingly, most corporate emissions targets in our sample are aligned with the Paris Agreement goals, although most companies are yet to set quantified targets. Companies that have implemented more carbon management practices today are more likely to have set 2°C-aligned targets. Carbon management and emissions performance are associated most strongly with where companies are headquartered and their size.