Biz Bang

Big business increasingly acting to fight climate change

More and more big companies are waking up and smelling the climate change, recognizing that it could have a notable impact on their bottom lines, according to the fourth annual survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project. The CDP, backed by large institutional investors, got responses from 360 of the Financial Times 500 major companies; 87 percent said climate change represented "commercial risks and/or opportunities," but only 48 percent had formal programs for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. A handful of firms are leading the way by offsetting their emissions in order to become carbon-neutral, including HSBC, Europe's largest bank. Other companies are taking the smaller step of offsetting emissions from their employees' business travel. "We think this is the start of an industry-wide philosophical shift, not a passing trend," said Susan Gurley, head of the Virginia-based Association of Corporate Travel Executives.