Big business faces $5bn carbon bill

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AUSTRALIA’S top 200 companies will have to pay $4.8 billion under an emissions trading scheme unless they reduce their carbon impact. Superannuation fund VicSuper’s Carbon Count 2008 report found that companies in the ASX 200 emit 243 million tonnes of greenhouse gas globally, including emissions from direct suppliers — or 42 per cent of Australia’s emissions.

Of that total, direct emissions (known as scope 1 emissions) were up from 2007 when the ASX 200 reported 133 million tonnes compared with 137 million tonnes this year.

Five companies made up just over half those direct emissions: BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, BlueScope Steel, Qantas and AGL Energy.

VicSuper chairman Bob Welsh said assuming a carbon price of about $20 a tonne, Australia’s top companies would be hit for $4.8 billion.

“That would be the cost if you did not reduce your carbon emissions and you couldn’t trade. But once that external cost has been internalised through a carbon price, companies will reduce that cost by reducing emissions and trading permits,” he said.

The report also recorded a rise in the number of companies disclosing adequate emissions data, up from 25 per cent last year to 30 per cent this year.

VicSuper identifies the power producers and energy traders, multi-utilities, construction materials, metals and mining, and chemicals sectors as the most exposed to carbon costs.

Mr Welsh said that despite the economic downturn, the clean tech space was still attractive for investors.

“I’m of the view that we are going to see a golden age once we ramp up the value in renewable technologies but also in changing the industrial processes with which business operates,” he said.

By Mathew Murphy