National Grid, Centrica, SSE and United Utilities have all been named in the top 20 FTSE 100 companies for sustainability performance and reporting.
The companies were ranked 8, 9, 12 and 17 respectively in the leaderboard put together by EcoAct, a climate and sustainability consultancy.
Companies were scored against 61 criteria covering four subject areas: measurement & reporting; strategy & governance; targets & reduction; and engagement & innovation.
National Grid scored an overall 78.9 per cent; Centrica 78.3 per cent; SSE 74.3 per cent and UU 68.4 per cent.
The report said that the number of utility companies entering this year’s top rankings indicated a growing appetite in the industry to lead on cutting carbon emissions.
However, overall the report makes it clear that UK businesses are not going far enough in implementing critical steps to limit carbon emissions.
While 81 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies have some sort of emissions reduction target, 85 per cent currently do not have a sufficient emissions reduction strategy in place to limit global warming to safe levels, the report claims.
“What has become crystal clear over the last year is that the climate emergency is no longer a distant concept”, said Stuart Lemmon, managing director, EcoAct. “In our ninth year of examining climate performance of the UK’s largest companies, while we have seen progress, change is simply not happening fast enough. It is now imperative that companies urgently step up to their responsibilities to drastically reduce carbon output.”
In addition to utilities, companies representing the FMCG, food and beverage and retailing sectors demonstrated strong performance, with Unilever claiming the number one position in the UK, followed by BT. Marks & Spencer took second position, with Tesco at number four, and Mondi, the packaging major, in joint fifth place with the Coca Cola Hellenic Bottling Company.