By American ESG Group Staff
May 16, 2022
Imagine just over 500 cars together. You can see them in the parking lot of that mall, during any Black Friday. That sum of machines can weigh 1,178 metric tons, not counting what they carry inside. Do you have a Gmail account? That will weigh the emitted carbon so you can check your mail or the files you have saved in Drive. Only for the next hour.
At the end of 2022, approximately 9.3 million tons, caused only by Google.
Soon we will know how much all the corporations pollute, technological or not, and that generates a challenge and business opportunities for urgent solutions and also many new jobs already offered through LinkedIn.
Voluntarily, some of the companies are disclosing everything that their operation pollutes. Not just at its closest range anymore.
Now, all of them will necessarily have to do it, japanese, chinese, mexican, canadian, and all the companies that do business with American corporations listed in Nasdaq or the NYSE.
Apple's annual emissions add up to 22.6 million; those of Amazon reach 60 million tons, according to the most recent data from the companies, updated to 2020.
These figures provided unpleasant surprises. They pollute more than previously thought. Much more.
Consider Scope 1 contamination, say, from Amazon buildings, warehouses, and car fleets. That limits the number of carbon dioxide emissions or its equivalent to 9.6 million tons per year, according to company reports.
Where do the other 50 come from? Of Scopes 2 and 3.
Scope 2 mainly includes the electricity purchased from a third party.
Scope 3 – which is still obscure in most organizations – involves the pollution emitted by everything necessary for the company to operate, including what happens to its employees and, attention, to its suppliers… like those located in China, or Mexico.
Count there corporate purchases, operating expenses, business travel and production, capital goods such as the construction of buildings, acquisition of servers and vehicles.
Also the transportation of third parties to company facilities, that of employees and the energy they consume when working at home; packaging, including customer trips to stores and how products are used.
So far, counting that is voluntary. But a new rule under discussion in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will cause everyone – worldwide – to account for them from 2023 if they sell to companies whose shares are listed in the US.
The rules should be ready in December.
The SEC is the highest authority of the American stock market and the reason for establishing these measures is that everyone, including companies, is at risk of subsistence due to climate change. To improve, you have to start by measuring.
The proposed rules would require information about a registrant's climate-related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on its business, results of operations, or financial condition.
The measures will trigger the need for the services of emission measurement companies, required by the SEC as verifiers. Obviously also the jobs in those companies (GHG attestation service providers).
Schneider, Intertek, SCS Global… Dozens of companies want that market and are already competing for workers.
