CDP requests emissions information

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) a collaboration of 385 institutional investors, with assets under management of $57 trillion, has issued its 2008 information request to the world's largest corporations.

This asks companies to measure and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and report on their strategy for dealing with risks and opportunities associated with climate change.

The resulting information will be held on the CDP website, the largest database in the world on corporate climate change information.

Paul Dickinson, chief executive officer of the CDP, said: "The momentum behind CDP represents the start of a unified global business response to climate change. The continued growth in investors supporting CDP and requesting the companies they invest in to respond through the CDP system demonstrates that we have entered an era when climate change has become a mainstream issue for both investors and corporations. Investors recognise that corporate engagement with climate change issues is an important indicator of good quality corporate management."

Recent CDP research with US signatory investors discovered that CDP information is very important to investors' decision making. It found that:

• 60% of investors identified which companies in their portfolio were either not responding to CDP, or were providing poor or trivial answers. The investors then used this information to further engage with these companies on the issue of climate change.

• 26% of investors supported shareholder resolutions for better disclosure on climate change from some companies not complying with CDP disclosure.

• All the investors interviewed agreed that the CDP data is a valuable resource and incorporated it into their decision making process at some level.

CDP has this year requested information from over 3,000 companies, up from 2,400 in 2007.

Investors that have signed up to CDP include Merrill Lynch, AXA, ANZ, Banco do Brazil, Mitsubishi UFJ, AIG, Barclays, RBS Group and HSBC. Legg Mason, Insurance Australia Group and the Florida State Board of Administration are among over 70 new investors to join this year.