Companies ‘Lagging’ on Carbon Accounting

Despite looming deadlines for compliance with carbon regulations, most companies are still lagging in their comprehension of carbon accounting as a whole, according to a survey by Epicor Software Corporation.

Major economies such as Australian and California are putting a price on carbon, but the survey revealed that 58 percent of companies had not heard of the term “carbon accounting” and that less than a third of the companies could accurately describe what the term means.

A full 80 percent of companies surveyed don’t monitor their company’s carbon footprint. Epicor described the findings as “worrying.”

The survey also revealed that although the CEO is the person most likely to be responsible for a company’s green strategy, 50 percent of firms surveyed don’t have any top-level involvement at all in their carbon accounting initiatives. Some 85 percent cannot report the level of carbon their company has consumed in each of the last six months, and nearly 70 percent believe that they accurately account for less than 25 percent of their company’s carbon consumption.

The market for enterprise energy and carbon accounting software grew 400 percent during 2010 and was forecast to grow another 300 percent in 2011, according to research released in February 2011 by efficiency system provider Groom Energy Solutions.