A Multicriteria Methodology to Evaluate Climate Neutrality Claims—A Case Study with Spanish Firms

Iker Larrea, Jose Manuel Correa, Rafaella López, Lidia Giménez and Kepa Solaun
Additional contact information
Iker Larrea: Global Factor, Colón de Larreátegui, 26, Planta 1, 48009 Bilbao, Spain
Jose Manuel Correa: Global Factor, Colón de Larreátegui, 26, Planta 1, 48009 Bilbao, Spain
Rafaella López: School of Sciences, Universidad de Navarra, 31080 Pamplona, Spain
Lidia Giménez: Global Factor, Colón de Larreátegui, 26, Planta 1, 48009 Bilbao, Spain
Kepa Solaun: Global Factor, Colón de Larreátegui, 26, Planta 1, 48009 Bilbao, Spain

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-13

Abstract: Net-zero pledges have become a paradigm of ambitious climate change action for companies, governments, and other organisations. However, there is no international standard or criteria to assess whether those commitments are feasible or truly represent a landmark in low carbon performance. In this paper, a methodology is proposed against which those statements can be quantified and assessed. The methodology was applied to Spanish companies that report to the Carbon Disclosure Project and showed that the biggest areas for improvement are the design of action plans, calculation, and offsetting. From a sectoral perspective, the energy sector, finance, and other services stood out as those with the highest scores. The food, beverages and tobacco, industry, and the entertainment industry obtained the lowest results. From a technical standpoint, strategy and commitment, calculation and scope, and communication are the areas where companies had the highest average scores. On the contrary, offsetting and action plans are the areas with the greatest room for improvement. Still, actual commitments are not enough to meet international climate neutrality objectives in the long-term and companies should continue to work in this direction. An enabling regulatory framework would be very useful to align private and public action in this area.

Keywords: climate neutrality; net-zero; climate change mitigation; voluntary carbon market; climate change; environmental integrity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/4310/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/4310/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:7:p:4310-:d:787252

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().