More than 60 percent of companies nationwide said government tax breaks are required to accelerate adoption of green investments, according to a new survey.
The survey, conducted by workspace solutions provider Regus, found only 37 percent of companies worldwide actually measure their emissions and less than one-fifth of companies (19 percent) measure the carbon footprint left by their activities.
Less than half of the companies surveyed said they will only invest in low-carbon equipment if the running costs are the same or lower than those of conventional equipment. Forty percent have invested in low-carbon equipment and only 38 percent have a company policy to do so.
In the U.S. specifically, the survey found that only 13 percent of companies monitor their carbon footprint and less than one-third (27 percent) monitor their energy consumption.
In addition to this, 76 percent had no company policy to invest in energy efficient equipment. Running costs were found to be very important to more than one-third of companies (37 percent) who declared that they would only invest in low-carbon equipment if it were cheaper or the same to run as conventional equipment. Finally, 63 percent of companies declared that if government offered tax incentives to invest in energy efficient or low-carbon equipment, businesses would significantly accelerate their green investments.
Globally, small companies are below average on their actual level of green investment, indicating that smaller businesses are harder pressed to select low-carbon equipment when this comes at marginally higher price, as short-term needs are more urgent than long-term investment.
In the U.S., only 9 percent of small businesses (19 percent globally) monitor their carbon footprint, compared to 31 percent of large businesses. More than half of large corporations have actually invested in low carbon equipment.
The sectors of media, marketing, manufacturing and banking monitored their carbon footprint the least, the survey found.
In all sectors, apart from retail, less than one-quarter of companies have a policy to invest in green equipment. In the retail sector, companies with a green equipment policy are only 31 percent. In the IT sector, 42 percent of companies have invested in green technology, a bigger proportion than all other sectors, although only 20 percent had a policy to do so.
"Adoption of green equipment and monitoring initiatives is still disappointingly low, particularly for smaller companies. Yet small- and medium-sized companies account for half any country’s business makeup If the government intends to follow up the results achieved by stimulus spending on clean energy which has created or saved 52,000 jobs by September 2009 and is serious about meeting ambitious carbon emission reduction targets by mid-century, then it needs to properly incentivize the change," said Sande Golgart, west region vice president of Regus U.S. "At the moment, low-carbon business technology is often limited in range and sold at premium pricing. This is proving to be an obstacle for businesses looking to invest. Tax breaks will help enormously, as our survey shows, and by accelerating implementation, will also help to create a mass market where unit prices fall."
