Moves from the Carbon Disclosure Project, Nestlé, Shell and all the latest from other brands in corporate responsibility this month.

Carbon cutters

The proportion of listed companies with climate change mitigation strategies has shot up, with, for the first time, a majority of firms now having some form of plan to tackle their greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project. The 2011 edition of the Global 500 report – the CDP’s flagship publication – finds that 68% of companies “have climate change at the heart of business strategies”, compared with 48% in 2010. Nearly half of companies covered by the CDP also reported that they had cut their emissions as a result of specific initiatives.

The CDP Global 500 report is available here.

Target questioned

Japan should scrap its greenhouse gas emission reduction target because of the need to reconfigure its energy mix in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the country’s main business federation says. According to the organisation, Nippon Keidanren, a goal of reducing emissions by 25% by 2020 is unrealistic if Japan is to reduce its reliance on nuclear power in the face of earthquake risk. The 11 March earthquake off Japan’s east coast triggered a tsunami that hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, causing a nuclear emergency.

Power boost

China’s highest authorities have given renewable power a boost by setting for the first time a feed-in tariff for electricity generated by solar panels. Under the scheme, a price for solar energy of between 1 and 1.15 yuan (10-11.5p) per kilowatt-hour will be guaranteed. This compares to an average rate of 0.4 yuan paid by grid companies to power generators. Analysts expect the move to encourage the roll out of solar power in China.

A small step forward

Ecuadorian plaintiffs in a marathon legal case against American oil giant Chevron scored a small victory in September. A judge in New York reversed a decision that would have stopped them from collecting $18bn in damages awarded against Chevron in February by an Ecuadorian court. Chevron had secured an order preventing collection of this outside Ecuador. However, it will still be some time before the Ecuadorians can hope to get their hands on the money, as the Ecuadorian judgment is subject to appeals. The long-running case – it has been going on since 1993 – is about liability for the alleged dumping of oil-drilling waste in the Ecuadorian rainforest in the 1970s and 1980s.

The business of politics

Few major corporations are fully transparent about their political lobbying activities in the US, a survey conducted by New York’s Baruch College has found. The Baruch Index of Corporate Political Disclosure examines the behaviour of the top 100 US corporations, finding that only seven could be considered “transparent”, while 28 are “opaque”, and the rest somewhere in between. The survey’s authors note: “On average the companies that contribute the most [in political donations] disclose less than others.” Transparent firms include Goldman Sachs, Pfizer and Xerox, while those operating in the shadows include Bank of America, Ford, Halliburton, MasterCard, News Corporation, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney.

The Baruch College survey results are available here.

Sea Shell

Shell is getting closer to finalising the permissions it needs to drill for oil in the Arctic waters off the north coast of Alaska. In September, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a new set of permits with tightened conditions under which Shell can drill. However, environmental groups have successfully contested previous permits and could appeal again. A group of NGOs said the permits were being granted “without first obtaining critical baseline science and without ensuring that a large oil spill could be cleaned up in the remote, stormy, and icy region”. Shell says its plans for drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas are “technically and scientifically sound”.

Fashion faux pas

Elite fashion houses are failing in corporate ethics, according to a survey carried out for the Ethical Consumer organisation. The study finds that while mass-market brands such as Gap have corporate responsibility performance constantly scrutinised, their luxury cousins benefit from a de facto “vow of silence” over issues such as animal testing, use of chemicals, workers’ rights and tax avoidance. Givenchy and Alexander McQueen scored particularly low on the Ethical Consumer index. The organisation says none of the top-end brands it approached for information about their ethical strategies bothered to respond.

Back in the fold

Nestlé has accepted that Indonesian palm oil producer Smart, ultimately part of the Sinar Mas group, has cleaned up its act and can once again be counted among the Swiss food giant’s suppliers. Nestlé was one of a number of major corporations that suspended purchases from Smart in 2010 after Greenpeace accused it of deforestation and damaging tropical peatland. Since then, Smart has achieved Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil certification, and has put in place a Forest Conservation Policy (FCP). A company spokesman thanked Greenpeace, among others, for “positive contributions and collaboration to implement the FCP initiative”. A Financial Times analysis, meanwhile, found that the palm oil boycott by western companies made little difference to Sinar Mas’s profits, mainly because it was offset by rising demand in Asia.

China crisis

Up to 500 people in the Chinese city of Haining, near Shanghai, stormed a solar panel production plant in September during a protest against pollution. The protesters overturned vehicles and clashed with company staff, some of whom were accused of smashing the cameras of local journalists covering the incident. The company, Jinko Solar Holding Co, was accused of poor pollution control standards leading to contamination of local rivers and possible cancer risks. The violent protest was the latest of several in China against polluting factories. In August, a chemical plant in the north-eastern city of Dalian was closed after mass protests. However, it is unclear in China if the initial response to protests led to lasting change, with the Dalian factory reportedly reopening after a short period.