The Carbon Disclosure Project 2009, Asia ex-Japan Report, authored by the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA), reported a double increase in the number of companies reporting their corporate greenhouse gas emissions data, from 61 last year to 127 this year.
Carbon Disclosure Project
Founded in 2000, The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) represents about 475 global institutional investors with more than US $55 trillion in assets under management. CDP collects climate change data from 2,500 major corporations into the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emissions database.
Asia ex-Japan Report
In this 2009 Asia ex-Japan Report, there are 4 key themes from the CDP questionnaire responses:
- From Mitigation to Adaptation – Companies Start to Move Beyond Regulatory Uncertainty and Focus on Opportunities
- More Substantive Disclosure of Emissions and Operational Data
- IT Sector leads on Responses and Data
- Korea Pushes Ahead, India Emerges Strongly
Singapore
For Singapore, the number of companies involved and the response rate is less than satisfactory (see tables below). 14 local companies were involved in the questionnaire and the response rate was 21%. Only 3 companies answered the questionnaire – Capitaland Limited, City Developments Limited and Singapore Airlines. In contrast, the response rate in Korea is 50% with 50 companies answering the questionnaire.
Response Profiles of Asian Countries
Singapore Companies and their Responses
More Effort Needed
Clearly, more Singapore companies need to take climate change seriously and start reporting their corporate greenhouse gas emissions data and take steps to reduce their emissions. If not, local companies will fall behind more proactive companies in Korea and India, and lose their competitive advantage in the coming carbon constraint market.
Source and image credit: Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA)
