Regional Finding

Europe

15 of the 50 keystone companies are headquartered in Europe – in this benchmark, this includes the 27 Member States of the European Union, the UK and Russia

The relative regional leader - but with a worrying number of laggards.

  • More than half of these European-headquartered companies are expected to decline in their performance in the near term; concerning for a region in which climate policy ambition is set to be high.
  • The median rating for Europe is 10B=; for the overall ranking it is 7.1D-.
  • However, the median rating for companies headquartered in industrial powerhouse Germany is 7.2D=.

As the EU Commission states in its 2020 Annual Work Programme, ‘Climate action is at the heart of the European Green Deal’. The Commission will present its strategy for smart sector integration for a future integrated European energy system, to increase the electrification of sectors still reliant on fossil fuels and bolster hydrogen. Part of our work moving forward will be to explore how policy can better drive the emissions reductions and access to universal clean energy needed from these keystone companies to achieve Paris and the SDGs.

As the leader both in the European region and of the benchmark overall, Ørsted is preparing for the low-carbon economy. Its shift towards an electricity generation portfolio dominated by low-carbon sources fully aligns it with the Paris goals on all material investment indicators. It also performs well on targets, having set an emissions reduction target pathway more ambitious than its decarbonisation pathway allocated under the well-below 2-degree scenario pathway.

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