Companies like H&M and Nike have often made claims of an overall decrease in emissions while in reality, their emissions have been increasing, according to a Guardian report. This discrepancy is possibly due to the manner in which the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) calculates scores.
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) was established to help companies and other organizations publish their carbon emissions. The international non-profit tries to encourage companies to reduce their emissions by scoring their progress in the reduction of emissions.
It calculates the gross emissions of a company but only against its total revenue in a year. In essence, a company can get scored for decreasing their overall emission levels just by having a larger increase in their revenue, the report explained.
Nike, for example, reported a net emission increase of 1 percent Y-o-Y in FY 2019 but it was offset by 7 percent year-on-year revenue growth, resulting in over a 5 percent drop in emissions per revenue, as per the company’s climate change report in the year 2020.
