This article presents the latest trend analysis conducted by Optera, a leading provider of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and carbon management software.
The latest trend analysis from Optera, a provider of ESG and carbon management software, sheds light on the issues and concerns that big businesses must address in order to manage their emissions and promote an environmentally sustainable future.
To create the report, Optera questioned almost 100 corporate sustainability leaders in collaboration with B2B market research company NewtonX. The business sustainability landscape is examined in the 2023 trend analysis, “Corporate Emissions in 2023: Large Organizations’ Top Challenges & Priorities.”
Optera is a dependable sustainability partner to businesses all around the world, with a goal of assisting the corporate sector in being climate neutral by 2050. In order to equip sustainability practitioners to handle climate risk in their organizations and create a more sustainable future, its most recent study emphasizes the importance of tools, alignment, and collaboration across value chains.
According to Optera’s study, the two current top goals are emission reduction and regulatory compliance. Implementing emissions reduction projects was cited as the year’s most urgent priority by about a third of respondents. Regulation and verification compliance was the second-highest priority, according to 25% of respondents.
The trend report also discovered an increase in emission inventory procedures. According to the report, 72% of organizations have gone through at least one emission inventory process. For the first time this year, a further 16% of companies also calculated their corporate emissions.
Improvement possible
Leaders in sustainability are nonetheless concerned about erroneous emissions statistics despite these measures. The technologies that address the most prevalent data concerns are only used by less than 30% of respondents. Sustainability leaders are unable to collect and analyze full, high-fidelity emissions data because of incomplete and erroneous data.
Deeper analysis and management of Scope 3 emissions were chosen as one of the top two objectives for the upcoming year by 35% of respondents overall. This was also true for larger organizations, with 42% of businesses with annual revenues over $10 billion selecting it as a key priority compared to 17% of businesses with annual revenues under $1 billion.
Tim Weiss, co-founder and CEO of Optera, stated: “In light of governmental actions and pressure from shareholders and partners, the drive for enterprises to quantify their environmental effect is increasing. According to the Optera analysis, quantifying Scope 3 emissions, which account for an average of 75% of a company’s carbon footprint, is a major goal for sustainability specialists, especially at larger firms.
Optera also discovered that when compared to other businesses, the financial services sector is lagging behind in implementing emissions reduction strategies. Implementing reduction strategies was identified as the top priority by 52% of respondents in the manufacturing sector, compared to 14% in the financial services sector.
