Anyone who wants to put their money into climate-friendly businesses—like renewable energy or electric cars—has long been able to identify suitable companies or invest in “green” indices. But it’s been more difficult to avoid, or at least hedge against, investing in companies that actually worsen climate change. That, finally, is changing.
Most companies in most countries aren’t required to measure, much less declare, the extent of their carbon emissions. It can also be hard to tell, from the outside, how carbon-intensive a company’s business actually is. There have been moves by some groups to divest from fossil-fuel companies, but it isn’t just oil giants or coal drillers that have an impact on the climate, or rely on polluting technologies—they’re just the most obvious.
In the past year, though, there has been a marked rise in the number of companies that set their own internal “price” for carbon emissions and self-report the figures. In 2015, 437 companies around the world used such a guide, up from 150 the previous year.