CDP’s dishonesty not helping to combat climate change
The organization CDP has criticized SCA and Boliden – and 1,051 other Swedish companies – for not disclosing their environmental impacts.
The reason is not that the companies do not report environmental data. Both SCA and Boliden have compiled extensive environmental and GHG emissions data, reported according to well-known principles and models such as GRI and the UN Global Compact, and that are easy to access on the companies’ websites and in their annual and sustainability reports.
The reason why is that SCA and Boliden have elected not to pay high fees to CDP or to invest resources in the rather comprehensive process involved in reporting data in accordance with the CDP model. Even the parties engaged to audit the restated environmental data have to pay fees to CDP.
CDP claims to be a non-profit organization but is actually a crass commercial operation that seeks out customers by, like here, threatening companies with bad publicity. CDP has previously announced publicly that the organization cannot rule out the fact that SCA is contributing to deforestation in Brazil, since the company refuses to pay the high fees for reporting its sourcing of raw materials in line with the CDP model. CDP could easily have visited SCA’s website to read where the raw materials for SCA’s industries are sourced, which is northern Sweden.
These methods are more similar to protectionism than a contribution to open and transparent reporting of environmental and climate-related performance.
SCA and Boliden will continue to contribute to a necessary climate transition and to tackle climate change by providing the minerals required for electrification, forest growth and renewable alternatives to fossil fuels. And we will continue to present transparent and verified environmental and emissions data.
But we will not pay any money to extortionists. This kind of dishonesty is not helping to combat climate change.
