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Major Asian carriers snub Carbon Disclosure Project 2008

Tony Chan | September 25, 2008 | 0 Comments

More than half of the Asian companies listed under the telecommunications services category failed to respond or chose not to respond to the 2008 Carbon Disclosure Project, which asks leading global corporations to disclose their emission levels and strategies.

More than 3,000 companies across different industries were sent questionnaires as part of this year’s CDP – the sixth since the project was started. This year’s CDP was backed by 385 leading institutional investors representing more than US$57 trillion in managed funds.
Out of the total, 118 corporations were listed in the ‘telecommunications services’ category.

Among telecoms services providers, 33 hailed from the Asian region, including Australia and New Zealand. Of these, only 13 corporations bothered to answer the questionnaire. Of the rest, 15 Asia telcos didn’t bother to respond while 3 declined to participate and one company, China Telecom, submitted information but did not respond to the questions.

As such, the overall respond rate of telecoms service providers in Asia stands at less than 40%, a full 10% lower than the response rate of the overall telecoms services sector and barely half of the 77% response rate of Global 500 companies.

THE GOOD
According to the response listings, there is now a clear geographic divide for carriers that are willing to disclose their carbon emissions, and those that do not. All but one of the thirteen responses came from Australia/New Zealand, Japan or Korea. These were, from Australia and New Zealand: Computershare, Telstra, Macquarie Telecom, Ten Networks, Telecom New Zealand; from Japan: KDDI, NTT, NTT DoCoMo, Nippon TV Network; from South Korea: SK Telecom, KT, KT Freetel. The last of the lot was Zee Entertainment Enterprise from India.

THE BAD
None of the Chinese and all but one India firms managed to submit responses to CDP. This group includes China Mobile, China Unicom, China Netcom, Bharti, Reliance, Tata Teleservices, MTN (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam), and Idea. Other Asia carriers that also did not respond to the CDP6 include Chunghwa Telecom, Telkom Indonesia, and Austar.

Interestingly, some of these companies already produce their own environmental report so they have already invested in the resources to gather this type of information. For example, China Mobile already discloses its power consumption and carbon emissions in its CSR report, so it is a baffling to find that the company has snub the CDP questionnaire.

AND THE…
In addition to those that responded and those that did not, a third group of Asia carriers actually acknowledged the project, but chose not to respond to it. Surprisingly, this group included some of the largest regional carriers in very mature markets, namely Singapore and Hong Kong. Among names in this group are: PCCW, SingTel and StarHub.

“Going forward, our priority will be on producing a standalone CSR report within three years guided by global reporting standards and cover any possible financial impact as a consequence of climate change,” SingTel’s director of corporate communications told the CDR in a letter listing out SingTel’s CSR initiatives. “Given the extensive work needed for this project, we would not be able to participate in the CDP at this stage. As we work towards our inaugural standalone report, we will continue to address concerns and welcome feedback from individual investors regarding our CSR.”

THE GLOBAL 500
The response rate among the Global 500 companies was significantly higher as many of the companies had already participated in the project in the past. According to a report compiled by PricewaterHouseCoopers, 383 companies out of the Global 500 (77%) responded to the CDP this year.

In the Global 500 Technology, Media & Telecom category, 55 companies responded out of a total of 73. As part of the questionnaire, the respondents were also asked to present their views on a number of topics, including the risk of climate change regulation, risk of severe weather events, as well as opportunities in light of these trends.

Of the total respondents, 76% cite some kind of regulatory risk resulting from carbon policies, although the belief is that the exposure will be limited as the industry itself does not generate significant direct emissions to be subject to heavy regulation. At the same time, 74% of the respondents believe that their worldwide operations including those of their customers and suppliers could be subject to extreme weather events.

Almost three quarters of the respondents however anticipate opportunities arising from the physical impacts of climate change. Areas identified as potential opportunities include measurement of scientific data, renewable energy products, disaster recovery equipment and software.

In terms of environmental performance, 68% of the companies said they have reduction targets, while 70% of companies in this category said they can quantify those targets with emission data and time periods. More importantly, 78% of the companies responding to the questionnaires revealed that they have an executive body with overall responsibility for climate change, while 50% of the sector has mechanisms in place for the management of specific climate change issues and targets.

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