Deceitful financial practices and unclear disclosures related to corporate climate action have fueled demands for regulation
The latest Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor (CCRM) 2025 report has highlighted several issues with corporate climate commitments across the technology, fashion, automotive, and agrifood sectors. The report assesses the climate pledges of 20 global brands and scores them based on emissions tracking, disclosure, target setting, adherence to sectoral targets, and efforts to tackle ongoing emissions and scale up carbon removal.
Technology Sector Issues
Major tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft exhibit climate strategies that lack credible leadership. Their commitments are often outdated and fail to align business models with the rapid and large-scale changes needed for the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. Although some companies like Google and Microsoft participate in initiatives like the 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact, overall progress is patchy and insufficient to meet global climate goals.
Fashion Sector Issues
Fashion companies show some progress, for instance Adidas, Inditex, and H&M have started disclosing material usage and supply chain energy data which are important for assessing circularity and emissions. However, underlying challenges remain, such as insufficiently ambitious targets and unclear integration of emissions reduction into business models. Only a few, like Inditex, clearly disclose their use of carbon credits or removals, reducing risks of misinterpretation. Fashion firms still face the challenge of deeply restructuring supply chains and production practices to achieve meaningful decarbonisation.
Automotive Sector Issues
Companies such as Toyota have no 1.5°C-aligned decarbonisation targets, lack commitments to phase out internal combustion engines, and have seen emissions increase significantly. The automotive sector broadly shows inadequate ambition and pace for the deep transitions required to meet climate goals, which is critical given its high emissions profile.
Agrifood Sector Issues
Agrifood sector climate commitments suffer from overreliance on poorly defined carbon credits, distracting from the necessity for deep structural reforms in emissions and production systems. Only a few companies, such as Danone, set credible methane reduction targets and advance plant-based protein shares, though even these commitments can lack comprehensiveness. This sector’s challenges include structural changes in farming practices, supply chains, food loss reduction, and transparency around emissions and climate impacts.
Cross-Sector Challenges Highlighted
Across all sectors, a common problem is misleading accounting practices and irregular disclosure, making it difficult to assess the real climate impact of corporate pledges. Many companies fail to align their business models and investments with the speed and scale of decarbonisation needed to meet internationally agreed climate targets. Transparency issues regarding carbon credit use and insufficiently detailed or ambitious targets reduce corporate accountability.
Notable exceptions include H&M's efforts to increase the use of renewable electricity in its supply chain and Mars' attempts to weed deforestation out of its supply chain. However, some companies, like Shein, are falling short of climate goals. Shein's 2030 targets allow the ultra fast fashion brand to more than double its emissions compared to 2021.
Regulators are urged to create an environment where corporate climate action is a business necessity rather than a voluntary side job. The goal posts of what constitutes best practice in climate action has shifted with growing scientific evidence that underpins the climate crisis. The report called for regulators to step in to bring greater accountability to climate targets.
Recommendations from experts include the need for a strong regulatory framework to ensure that the private sector takes real climate action without engaging in greenwashing, and that corporate accountability frameworks validate and verify corporate climate plans against clear government requirements.
The CCRM 2025 report also identified some of the best practices deployed by companies in the tech, agrifood, automotive, and fashion sectors. For fashion companies, notably H&M, while commitments have been made to phase out coal, a reliance on fossil gas and biomass persists. Also, commitments to move away from the high-volume fast fashion business model, reduce overproduction and embrace circularity are lacking and fragmented.
In the automotive sector, long-term decarbonisation pledges were rated as critically insufficient due to the absence of specific commitments to reduce emissions. All of the brands assessed except for Stellantis - which has committed to cut absolute emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 - have made insufficient progress to phase out internal combustion engines.
The report called on sustainability frameworks to prioritise 24/7 matching of renewable electricity procurement, a commitment to ensure that every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed is matched with carbon-free electricity at every hour of every day. This is aimed at tackling the limitations of the market-based accounting approach to buying power.
[1] Source: Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor (CCRM) 2025 report [2] Source: Carbon Market Watch [3] Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
- The technology sector's climate strategies, as displayed by major companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, lack credible leadership and often fail to align with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target, even though some, such as Google and Microsoft, participate in initiatives like the 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact.
- The fashion sector, with companies like Adidas, Inditex, and H&M, has made some progress in disclosing material usage and supply chain energy data, helping assess circularity and emissions, but faces ongoing challenges such as insufficiently ambitious targets and unclear integration of emissions reduction into business models.
- The automotive sector's progress is inadequate, with companies like Toyota having no 1.5°C-aligned decarbonisation targets, weak commitments to phase out internal combustion engines, and seeing significant emissions increases.
- The agrifood sector tends to rely on poorly defined carbon credits and lacks deep structural reforms in emissions and production systems, with only a few companies, such as Danone, setting credible methane reduction targets and advancing plant-based protein shares.
- Cross-sector issues highlighted in the report include misleading accounting practices, irregular disclosure, and a lack of alignment between business models and investments with the speed and scale of decarbonisation needed to meet international climate targets, increasing the risks of greenwashing and reducing corporate accountability.
