Following Nick Clegg's Rio+20 announcement that all 1,100 FTSE-listed companies will have to report their greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions from April 2013, the world's environment media and major news agencies sought IEMA's view on the topic.
IEMA has been working to influence the government’s decision on this issue for more than three years. So when the decision to introduce mandatory reporting was made – and government policy finally reflected the view of 90% of IEMA members surveyed in 2010 that reporting should be introduced for all large companies – IEMA declared the move a “step forward”.
Media as diverse as Bloomberg, Edie and the Chicago Tribune featured IEMA’s view on the introduction of mandatory reporting, alongside the following environment, business and news channels:
- Greenwise Business;
- BusinessGreen;
- The ENDS report;
- Energy and Environmental Management;
- Reuters;
- eGov Monitor; and
- Business Week.
IEMA’s executive director of policy, Martin Baxter, was widely quoted.
“This is a welcome decision for UK plc and demonstrates international leadership as part of the Rio discussions,” he said. “Mandatory reporting will deliver benefits for both the UK economy and the environment, and turn the environment into a mainstream business opportunity.”
However, the key message was to “strongly urge” the government to speed up the introduction of mandatory reporting to all large firms; business and the environment will not fully benefit until all 24,000 large companies are required to disclose their GHG emissions.
Ahead of the publication of draft regulations, due by end of July, IEMA has issued an interim briefing outlining key elements of the policy to help environment professionals prepare for its introduction.
IEMA would like to thank all of its members who contributed to the Institute’s research on this issue, which enabled us to form such a strong and recognisably authoritative position. We will keep members updated with this new policy as further details are released.
For more information on IEMA’s work on GHG reporting, contact Nick Blyth at [email protected]
