Over the last seven decades, global carbon emissions have increased almost eightfold. Meanwhile, since 1980, the planet’s average temperature has risen significantly, with nine out of 10 warmest years on record having been in the last nine years. For sustainable development, it is now widely agreed that we must achieve a shared global goal of cutting carbon emissions by 45% in the next 20 years from 2010 levels.
The good news is that businesses have started responding actively. More than 100 companies worldwide have pledged 100% use of renewables. Food companies have set a goal to reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. And more than 30 financial institutions with global assets worth $8.7 trillion have pledged to avoid investing in any business that can be held responsible for deforestation.
Making such a pledge is one thing—finding ways to measure, track, and implement it is entirely another. Pledges like the ones above, for instance, mean tracking data on the deforestation impact of ingredients such as soya, palm, cocoa, and coffee, which many consumer goods and retail businesses use in their food and personal care products.
To evaluate how effectively enterprises are managing their sustainability imperatives, TCS and Microsoft worked together to research and analyze publicly available data. We found that irrespective of size and revenue, enterprises are becoming increasingly conscious of sustainability. However, they are struggling to measure the true value of decarbonization efforts in their supply chains. By improving the quality of global supply chain data, enterprises can better measure their true carbon footprint—and ultimately help find the missing link to a net-zero business ecosystem.
