Majority of European firms fail on carbon reporting: study

British financial services company Aviva placed first in the rankings based on emissions and levels of disclosure and verification, while Polish mining company KGHM came in last, according to the non-profit Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO).

Swiss telecom operator Swisscom ranked first among non-financial companies while unsurprisingly utilities were overall the biggest emitters, accounting for nearly 46 of all climate-changing greenhouse gases.

The EIO compiled its Environmental Tracing Europe 300 Carbon Ranking index and plans to release further regional indexes and a global index in the coming months to provide tools for the investment community to tackle climate change.

"The purpose of the carbon rankings is two-fold: to highlight the carbon emissions and levels of disclosure of the world's largest companies with the aim of fostering greater transpacency and to form the basis of a series of stock market indexes, designed specifically to provide the investment community with a viable tool for tackling climate change," said Sam Gill, EIO's operational director.

The EIO found that European companies still have a long way to go on reporting greenhouse gas emissions, with 13 percent of companies still providing no public information and only 43 percent releasing complete and verified information for their own emissions plus electricity.

Spanish companies were best at reporting, with 92 percent providing complete information including 77 percent with the information independently verified.

French and Swiss companies were worst, with only 60 percent of French firms disclosing full emissions data while only 27 percent of Swiss firms provided independently verified information.

(c) 2011 AFP