Climate change can be a contentious topic with parts of the population denying its existence entirely and others desperately trying to draw attention to the urgency of the situation. It is largely accepted that big businesses, especially those that rely on fossil fuels, are responsible for producing the majority of carbon emissions. Therefore, it has become important to the public that companies are seen to be doing their bit to help the environment. According to a ranking done by employees Tomorrow GmbH, TPL-Escher GmbH, and Decadis AG, came out as some of the most sustainable German companies. However, the greenwashing trend is rife in the sustainability industry making it sometimes difficult to differentiate between the companies trying to help the environment and those simply trying to get good PR.
Overall, there is an awareness among companies that something needs to be done to create a more sustainable business, regardless of the industry in which the company operates. It seems though that the follow through is lacking from certain businesses because although some companies can be seen making a meaningful difference to climate change, others are not setting themselves any sustainability goals and carrying on business as usual.
Taking action?
In Germany, most companies said that their management board took charge of sustainability within the company. This, however, does not provide any information as to whether they are taking action to make changes and reduce their carbon footprint. When asked if they had concrete goals to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, less than 45 percent said they were doing this in line with the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 by 196 Parties at COP21. The main objective was to limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. For this to be successful the compliance of major companies is paramount. Therefore, to see that less than 45 percent of companies have managed to comply with the agreement even almost 10 years after it was drawn up shows that perhaps it is not being taken seriously enough.Public perception
When it came to the public’s perception as to whether industries had done enough to protect the environment, they were consistently the lowest scoring sector. In the most recent survey, only 15 percent of respondents thought they were doing enough. Although this was still an increase compared to 2018 when the approval rating was only eight percent, the overall figures are still very low indicating that in the eyes of the German population, companies are not doing enough to offset their contribution to climate pressure.Overall, there is an awareness among companies that something needs to be done to create a more sustainable business, regardless of the industry in which the company operates. It seems though that the follow through is lacking from certain businesses because although some companies can be seen making a meaningful difference to climate change, others are not setting themselves any sustainability goals and carrying on business as usual.
