How do large corporations impact the environment

A study conducted by Trucost, a London-based consulting group, recently assessed the environmental use, damage, and loss by 3,000 of the world’s largest corporations.

The study draws conclusions and information from eight years of study, and was commissioned by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment and the United Nations Environment Programme. The report is the result of increasing concern for major companies not being held accountable for a level of corporate social responsibility in regards to environmental impact.

As policy remains in limbo, government and environmental officials continue to quarrel over abolishing the practice of subsidizing and replacing it with instating a cost for damage, and the stakes increase. Fresh water, fisheries, fertile farming soil, and human quality of life is being negatively effected each year as a result of negligent business practice.

The companies assessed by the report are from the UK-FTSE and 100 other major markets, including all 500 companies on the Standard & Poor’s list of the largest traded companies in the United States (Microsoft, Proctor and Gamble, Apple, Exxon Mobil, etc).

The report, which will officially be published in May, assessed the price tag on the estimated combined corporate damage at $2.2 trillion a year — more than the national economies of all but seven of the world’s countries in 2008.