Gartner says too many enterprises in denial about carbon management
A total of 45.7 per cent of
respondents said that carbon pricing was not influencing their organization’s
planning, while 18.3 per cent said it was influencing their organization’s
planning for the next 24 months.
The survey results indicate that for
most countries, the percentage of enterprises planning ahead for carbon pricing
goes beyond those obliged to consider it under established regulations. However,
Gartner advised IT management teams that haven’t already done so, to start
building the processes and information systems to gather the necessary data as
this can be time-consuming and organizations are likely to be subject to carbon
reporting and pricing in the future.
In an international survey completed
in December 2008, Gartner asked 626 enterprises about their plans for carbon
reporting and pricing, and current and future implementation of carbon
reporting, tracking or management systems. The respondents represented an even
spread of sectors and company sizes from 1,000 to more than 10,000
employees.
“While the number of enterprises
using or planning to use carbon tracking systems exceeds those legally required
to do so, given the inevitable requirements to support carbon reporting in the
future, the percentage of enterprises preparing is low,” said Simon Mingay,
research vice president at Gartner. “Regardless of actual or anticipated
regulations, midsize and large enterprises should at least be building carbon
information systems, because, whether in a developed or developing economy,
pressure will come down the supply chain to be transparent about carbon
emissions.”
The Obama administration is now
talking about a carbon cap and trade scheme, along the lines of the EU ETC and
Australian CPRS in which enterprises are obliged to buy and/or sell tradable
carbon certificates —– trading at €12/metric tonne as of March 2009, but
anticipated to rise as carbon allowances get squeezed. This kind of scheme and
others such as the
The survey provided some noteworthy
responses from individual countries when respondents asked if the possibility of
carbon pricing is influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24
months. The
Gartner asked the same respondents
about their carbon reporting, tracking and management systems, as well as their
intentions to implement or extend such systems. The results showed that, as a
region, Western Europe is best prepared, with 32 per cent saying that they have
some kind of system in place — twice as many as the Asia/Pacific region or the
U.S. However, there were some stark contrasts with 2.6 per cent of French
enterprises, compared with 74.4 per cent of German enterprises having such
systems in place. Most of those enterprises with systems in place had in-house
developments (mostly spreadsheets).
A further question asked of the
respondents was whether they would be implementing or extending carbon
reporting, tracking or management software during the next 18 months. The
results showed that most enterprises are not yet thinking about how carbon
pricing or reporting requirements will affect their business and have no plans
to implement a carbon reporting, tracking or management system to give them
visibility of their greenhouse gas emissions in this period.
“This apparent lack of preparation,
and the inevitability that most enterprises will come under increased scrutiny
from customers, investors, partners, key stakeholders and, eventually,
regulators, should come as a wake-up call to policymakers, boards, senior
leadership teams and CIOs,” said Mr. Mingay.
“Enterprises all over the world need
to get more serious about greenhouse gas reporting,” Mr. Mingay said. “Despite
the lack of specific regulations, midsize and large enterprises in developed
economies need to recognize that they will be paying for their emissions at some
point — it’s just a matter of when, how much and through what kind of mechanism.
Regardless of the recession, enterprises will find themselves under increasing
pressure from stakeholders, including investors and customers, to be more
transparent about emissions and reduction
programs.”
Additional information is available
in the Gartner report “Too Many Enterprises Are in Denial About Carbon
Management.” The report is available to Gartner clients at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=887913&subref=simplesearch and to members of the media from Gartner's PR team.
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