Swedish companies lead the way with SBTi commitments
I used the SBTi dashboard to see how companies in the Nordics compare. It is probably no surprise that Sweden leads the way, but I didn’t expect Norway to be in last place.
- Sweden: 482
- Denmark: 306
- Finland: 191
- Norway: 157
- Iceland: 12
In fact, Swedish companies make up for 42% of all 1,148 Nordics who have set targets or commitments.
If we compare these commitments to the relative size of our economies, Sweden still leads. Probably the big surprise to me is Norway. By many measures, Norway leads the world in sustainability initiatives. So why are they in last place here?
An interesting study titled Climate change adaptation in Norwegian businesses – Awareness, integration and barriers from last year doesn’t address SBTi directly, but looks at perceived barriers to climate change adaptation in Norwegian companies. Their analysis shows the main problems are:
- Costs
- Uncertainty related to effectiveness
- Staffing
- Lack of knowledge and competence
- Unclear regulations
Maybe the real problem is how net zero doesn’t conceptually work with oil and gas, which makes up about 20% of Norwegian GDP. The good news is that at least two of the biggest Norwegian firms, Kongsberg Gruppen and Telenor, have made SBTi commitments. SBTi just released their new standards for financial institutions, which should encourage other industries to commit.
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