New green league launched today

The Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO) launched its new online Environmental Tracking (ET) Index Series earlier today. It is hoped that this service will act as a way of driving down corporate emissions by separating the green from the greenwash.

Sam Gill, Operational Director at the EIO, explained, "The EIO is ultimately trying to bridge the gap between investment industry pledges on climate change and taking concrete action."

The ET index Series does not, however, only include information about companies’ CO₂ emissions, it also ranks companies based on the amount of information they choose to publicly disclose.

EIO claim the new series will “incentivise greater disclosure, verification and, ultimately emissions reduction amongst the world’s largest companies.” They argue that their index has the power to shift demand for company shares: “supporting the share prices of those companies with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions intensities and greatest levels of transparency, while penalising those with the highest emissions and lowest levels of disclosure, on a systematic basis.” They maintain that this will create a significant financial incentive to speed up the transition to a low carbon economy.

The EIO argue that their new index has the ability “transgress international borders and simultaneously by-pass the deadlock in international governmental climate negotiations.”

Mr Gill said: "The logic behind the Environmental Tracking re-weight system is that it applies the most pressure to the most carbon intensive industries and the least pressure to the least carbon intensive industries. After-all, the high intensities companies/sectors are the ones that are going to need to have the most pressure applied to them in order to encourage a shift to a low carbon model. The Ranking provides a basis for the re-weighting system, and at the same time draws attention to the current inconsistent nature of emissions reporting."

Emily Farnworth, Global Alliance Director at the Climate Group, said of the EIO’s innovation: "It's extremely helpful to see new products like this emerging. It encourages companies to measure, report and reduce carbon emissions. And, in this particular case, it also provides mainstream investors with a new tool to support the transition towards a low carbon economy."

At the time of the ET index rankings’ launch, the highest placed European company was the UK insurance company Aviva. Ensco plc was the lowest placed UK company on the 300-strong list. In an interesting new twist to the UK battle of the supermarkets, Tesco ranked highest, with Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s coming further down the list. However, high street retailers Marks and Spencer’s and Next, both placed higher on the list than all three supermarkets.

 

Link: EIO Europe 300 Carbon Ranking