Lisbon, April 1, 2025 (Lusa) - Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from business air travel by the largest global companies fell by 34% between 2019 and 2023, but Portuguese companies are still among the worst ranked.
According to the latest ranking of business air travel emissions, the fourth edition of the "Responsible Travel Campaign" released on Tuesday, Portugal's EDP doubled its emissions in the period in question.
According to the environmental association Zero, which is part of the campaign and which released the ranking in a statement today, Portuguese companies are not only among the worst ranked but also have no targets for reducing emissions from business travel.
According to Zero, while multinationals are now travelling less by plane, 44% of the 326 companies in the ranking have not set targets for reducing emissions, which is, says the association, "especially worrying" for the most polluting companies, such as EDP, which doubled its emissions compared to 2019, or GALP, whose emissions increased by 13%.
Of the 13 Portuguese companies included in the ranking, in a classification where A means best and D the worst, 11 obtained a C rating and two are even in the worst, the D rating (Altri SGPS and Mota Engil).
In its analysis, Zero says that despite some improvements in position, the Portuguese companies CGD, Efacec Energia, NOS, Jerónimo Martins, Sonae, EDP, Corticeira Amorim and Mota Engil were unable to get out of the group of those with the worst rankings (C and D).
The best national rating goes to Caixa Geral de Depósitos, which reduced its labour travel emissions by 24% in 2023 compared to 2019, the statement said. It also noted that Portuguese companies' poor performance contrasts with the better situation of their Spanish, French, British, and German counterparts.
"As the majority of Portuguese companies continue to fail to fulfil their climate responsibilities year after year, ZERO urges these companies" to set targets for reducing emissions from air travel, to include non-carbon dioxide (CO2) effects in their emissions reporting, and to implement and publish the measures for achieving the defined targets.
Zero gives as examples of feasible measures favouring the train over air travel on the Lisbon - Porto and Lisbon - Faro routes, and replacing face-to-face meetings with videoconferencing.
In general terms, the ranking identifies the 25 large global companies with no set targets and with the largest environmental footprint from work-related air travel, including Google and Apple.
The 25 companies, some of which, Zero warns, claim to be "green leaders", have not set any targets "despite the fact that their flights emit a total of 6.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year - the equivalent of the climate footprint of 48,000 flights between Paris and New York or 1.3 times the annual emissions in Belgium".
At least 19 of these companies or their managers own or use private jets, such as Johnson & Johnson and Meta. The statement also adds that the performance of Merck and Bosch, with increases of 29% and 3% in their emissions respectively, "is particularly disappointing".
According to the document, companies such as Swiss RE and Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, which lead the way in terms of good performance, have shown "that it is possible to travel less by plane and still be economically successful".
Swiss Re set targets in 2020 and has reduced emissions by 67% since 2019 with measures such as setting annual budgets for travel emissions in its business units.
Analysing the data in the ranking shows that companies that set targets generally achieve more significant reductions in emissions from their business air travel.
The Travelling Responsibly ranking - https://travelsmartcampaign.org/ranking/ - ranks 326 North American, European and Indian companies according to 11 indicators. In this year's edition, 16 companies got an A rating, 40 got a B rating, the overwhelming majority got a C rating (230), and 42 companies got a D rating.
FP/ADB // ADB.
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