The EY Report

Green transition, 68% of Italian companies have concrete goals

The global figure is 47%. More than 50% of national entities have climate risk action plans. The most active sectors: energy and industry

by Alexis Paparo

4 December 2024

Transizione verde, il 68% delle aziende italiane ha obiettivi concreti

4' min read

Key points

Opportunities
Global context

4' min read

Translating awareness into action and turning the difficulties posed by the green transition into opportunities and growth. This is the not easy game that companies are playing, necessary in order not to fall behind in a global context where the path to decarbonisation is marked out. But Italian companies seem to be better at it than the world average.

According to the latest EY Global Climate Action Barometer 2024 - now in its sixth edition and based on a sample of over 1,400 companies in 51 countries - 41 per cent of companies globally implement action plans and financial commitments to address climate change risks (they were 53 per cent in 2023, but there has been a 70 per cent increase since the first edition of the report), but Italy is over 50 per cent. A drop in the global figure that - according to the report's findings - partly reflects the difficulties still present for companies in identifying and implementing more detailed, coherent and comprehensive transition plans than in the past, having to deal with a time of incoming regulatory changes and economic-geopolitical uncertainties.

A 'less but better' is evident in the figure related to scenario analysis to assess climate risks, using both quantitative and qualitative data: 67% of global companies carry them out, up from 58% last year.

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While Europe leads the world in the implementation of transition plans (59%), Italy is at the top of the country rankings, led by the United Kingdom (66%). "Italian companies have a more mature approach: almost 68% of the realities, compared to 47% of the world sample, have specified quantitative actions, with numerical targets, in relation to the analysis of emissions scenarios," notes Marco Duso, EY Italy and Emeia Sustainability Leader. "Moreover, if only 36% of global companies have made reference to the financial impact related to climate in their balance sheets, in Italy the percentage rises to over 70%.

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Also with regard to the quality of information disseminated - improving worldwide (54%, it was 50% in 2023), Italy is at 62%, above the European average (61%). The podium goes to the UK (69%), South Korea (62%) and Japan, tied with Europe. Only 32% of US companies declared their transition plans, and 29% of those in the Middle East - 'although there is reported momentum after Cop28, which is one of the merits of holding climate conferences outside the usual venues', notes Duso. At the bottom of the ranking is China, where the adoption rate of transition plans is 8 per cent.

The opportunities

For Italian companies, it seems clear that the green transition does not only present risks: 85% of the national sample declares that they are working to identify and exploit the new market opportunities it can open up, compared to 74% globally, particularly in the areas of products and services (73%), resource efficiency (44%) and energy resources (32%). "Europe and Italy have all the ingredients to be competitive in technologies linked to the green transition," comments Duso, "because they are strong on climate tech, they have the talent and the right universities to develop it, they have the industrial assets and many successful companies in the energy, industrial and agritech fields. If the first phase of the European green deal was very regulatory - 'the next one will have to be geared towards providing competitiveness tools for companies,' Duso concludes.

The Global Context

According to Enrico Giovannini, scientific director of the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASVIS), Europe and its businesses should look with great interest at Africa, 'the continent that will have the highest economic growth in the coming decades and enormous problems in accessing technologies for the ecological and digital transition. Europe has a strategic interest in its sustainable development, also with a view to minimising migration on the European continent'.

This is why ASVIS has suggested a sort of Next Generation Eu for Africa: 'The idea of making common debt for a shared priority, which is conceptually no different from defence spending (on which various European political groups would seem to agree) and instead has the positivity of sustainable development and also the creation of opportunities for the sale of green technologies developed by our companies, seems very opportune to us. Of course, it takes foresight, and also courage'.

Looking back home, how can Italian companies be stimulated and supported in the transition? "By changing the narrative, which continues to pass messages of wait-and-see. For example, the budget law under discussion makes reference to 2025-2027, thus to the post-NRP, but does not finance interventions for the implementation of already approved European regulations and directives (green houses, net-zero industry, nature regeneration) that are business and job creation opportunities'.

There is also,' Giovannini concludes, 'a major contradiction in the budget law: "Aid to the tourism sector is conditional on companies going green and digital. Why not apply the same criterion to other sectors? It would also have been an important signal to steer private finance in the same direction'.