"The good news is that disclosure of the most important environmental metrics by the biggest companies has become table stakes: 88 percent of the 100 largest US companies now disclose their greenhouse gas and energy metrics, while 65 percent disclose water use. Across the entire ranking universe, if a company is not disclosing greenhouse gases, energy, water or waste, it is now offside, playing catch-up with its peers. This is remarkable considering that most of these metrics are not subject to mandatory disclosure in most countries."
Disclosures benchmarking environmental factors such as greenhouse gases now makes it possible for investors to incorporate this information into their investment strategies. And early returns on the data show that greener investment is smarter investment.
Corporate Knights Capital (the research partner for Newsweek’s Green Rankings), reports that an investment of $100 equally spread across U.S. companies that performed better than average on greenhouse gas emissions would have returned $220 dollars over the past five years, versus $160 by investing in the S&P 500. Investing into these green companies also led to 93% fewer emissions than an equal investment in the S&P 500.
Highlights:
- 33% of U.S. 500 companies and over half of Global 500 companies now disclose greenhouse gas emissions beyond their own operations into their supply chain, which is where the lion’s share of impact is in many industries such as food products and consumer goods
- Nearly 25% of companies in the U.S. 500 and 39 percent of the Global 500 now link executive bonuses to environmental targets
