An amendment has been added to the UK’s Climate Change Bill, requiring all publicly-traded companies to report carbon emissions as part of their annual reports.
Under the bill, companies would have to total the emissions produced by everything from company vehicles to boilers.
The amendment reflects a growing movement to recognize the environmental and financial liabilities associated with greenhouse gas emissions. Investors want to know how vulnerable companies are to forthcoming emissions regulations, and governments want companies to begin tabulating emissions for regulation purposes.
However, critics says the amendment puts an undue burden on companies that already struggle to keep up with bureaucratic paperwork.
Alan Duncan, Conservative spokesman for business, enterprise and regulatory reform in the UK, said "The idea of carbon reporting sounds a good idea but we don’t currently have a standard auditing process for carbon. So until such a mechanism is established, it’s impossible to expect businesses to comply – particularly smaller businesses that are already overwhelmed by heaps of red tape."
Jon Trickett, a Labour Member of Parliament who supports the amendment said, "Corporations have been allowed to get away with green-washing their annual reports for too long."
The bill will be presented to the House of Commons later this month where legislators could drop the amendment, however The Independent quoted a Whitehall source as saying that would be unlikely and "highly embarrassing".
Loading...