KEY POINTS:
Climate change is spurring worldwide economic and industrial restructuring as more and more of the larger companies seek to confront global warming, an investor survey indicates.
Even so, some big firms are doing far too little to identify risks and opportunities from climate change, says the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), representing 315 institutional investors managing US$41 trillion ($56.4 trillion) in assets.
A record 77 per cent of the world's top 500 firms, rated by market capitalisation in the FT500, answered a request for information about their responses to global warming, up from 72 per cent in last year's survey.
"One trend above all is becoming increasingly clear - climate change and the various regulatory, policy and business responses to it are driving what amounts to a worldwide economic and industrial restructuring," the 92-page survey said.
"That restructuring has already begun to redefine the very basis of competitive advantage and financial performance for companies and their investors."
The project, in its fifth year, seeks to guide investors by getting companies to give details of their greenhouse gases and strategies for everything from energy efficiency to recycling.
The FT500 survey said 76 per cent of responding companies reported implementing a "greenhouse gas emissions reduction initiative", up from 48 per cent in the previous survey.
United Nations climate experts say that warming - blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels - will bring more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
In examples of change, the survey said brewer Anheuser-Busch was trying to develop crops resistant to extreme weather; oil group Total aimed to cut the flaring of associated gas 50 per cent by 2012; Alcoa was buying 20 per cent more recycled aluminium; and carmakers were developing more efficient hybrid electric-petrol vehicles.
"Investors are looking for the next big thing," said CPD chief executive Paul Dickinson.
"If the company is part of the problem on climate change, it hasn't a clear run at the markets of the 21st century."
The CDP sent requests to 2400 companies around the world and received 1300 responses.
In the FT500, Europe-based companies led in response rates, United States-based firms lagged and none of seven Chinese companies replied.
The CDP also published a first index of firms with what it said were best carbon disclosure practices, including mining group Rio Tinto, energy firm Iberdrola, computer firm Hewlett Packard and Westpac Banking.
However, it said too many firms failed to reply, including Apple Computer, Bank of China, Berkshire Hathaway, Gazprom and Philips Electronics.
"We find it absolutely incomprehensible why a company will fail to respond to a legitimate request from its shareholders," Dickinson said.
"Have they got something to hide? Do they think they operate in a complete vacuum?"
In a linked survey of top US companies in the SP500, response rates were 56 per cent.
That represented a majority for a first time - last year 47 per cent responded.
The US is outside the UN's Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions.
- Reuters
