A YouGov poll of 500 business people has revealed that the majority of companies are either aiming to reach zero emissions by 2030 or are already there, though the figure is lower for SMEs.
When asked if their business was planning to be net carbon neutral, 33 per cent said they would achieve the goal within the next 2-10 years, while 14 per cent said they would do it within 12 months. A further 8 per cent said they had already achieved carbon neutrality.
Companies with 50 or more staff were significantly more ambitious than smaller companies. Two thirds of those with 250-499 employees had carbon neutral plans, closely followed by the 50-99 bracket at 61 per cent.
More than half of companies with between 2-49 staff said they had no plans to go carbon neutral at all. However, the smallest companies (1-9 employees) were more likely than any other company size to have already achieved the goal.
In the North West specifically, 47 per cent of respondents said they had a plan in place. Respondents from the East Midlands and South West had the lowest ambitions (39 per cent), and the North East (78 per cent) and Scotland (58 per cent) the highest.
‘Change not fast enough’
The survey results were released shortly after a separate report found that more than 8 in 10 FTSE 100 companies had emissions reductions targets in place, but 85 per cent did not have a sufficient strategy in place to achieve them.
“What has become crystal clear over the last year is that the climate emergency is no longer a distant
concept”, said Stuart Lemmon, managing director of EcoAct, which authored the report. “In our 9th year of examining climate performance of the UK’s largest companies, while we have seen progress, change is simply not happening fast enough. It is now imperative that companies urgently step up to their responsibilities to drastically reduce carbon output.”
