Concern for the environment among Indian industry is definitely on the rise, says a new report by the UK-based non-governmental organisation, Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).
This year more companies have got high disclosure scores on the organisation’s Climate Disclosure leadership Index or CDLI.
Wipro leads the Indian bandwagon with an impressive score of 98, followed by Essar Oil and Infosys Ltd, both scoring 92.
“A high disclosure score signals that a company provided comprehensive information about the measurement and management of its carbon footprint, its climate change strategy and risk management processes and outcomes,” the CDP report, India 200 Climate Change Report 2013, said.
While the report analysed top 200 Indian companies, 55 companies have responded to CDP in 2013, compared with 53 in 2012. Of these, 20 companies made it to the CDLI this year. Last year only 16 made it to the list.
“Indian companies have shown increasing confidence in disclosing their GHG emissions, targets, commitments and associated progress towards targeted reductions,” the report notes.
On a positive note, the report says, “Nearly, two thirds of the responding companies perceive indirect risks of climate change affecting their supply chain, especially changes in customer behaviour.”
However, despite increasing consciousness, the report noted that Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions had increased in the past three years, which is inverse to the trend observed among the top 500 global companies.
Scope 1 emissions have increased to 178.4 million tonnes CO2 in 2013, from 89.4 million tonnes CO2 in 2012.
Scope 2 emissions in 2013 have gone up to 10 million tonnes CO2 against 6.4 million tonnes CO2 in 2012.
According to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, scope 1 emissions are defined as direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, while scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy.
The report suggests that Indian companies are increasingly looking at energy efficiency to drive greenhouse gas emissions reductions
According to CDP, the initiatives taken by companies save around 2.54 million tonnes CO2, which translates into an annual saving of Rs 800 crore for a one-time investment of Rs 4,000 crore.