Europe’s carbon market has spurred companies to cut their emissions despite relatively low carbon prices, acccording to a report published Friday based on interviews with several major corporate emitters.

The report by Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders, a business lobby group, features interviews with executives from nine ETS-regulated companies selected for their active approach to carbon reduction.

The companies were Italcementi, GlaxoSmithKline, Tata Steel Europe, ArcelorMittal, Jaguar Land Rover, EDF Energy, Shell, Owens-Illinois and Encirc.

Key findings:

• The presence of the ETS (and other regulations) acts to reinforce the benefits of emission reductions. Companies are saving money through greater efficiency and then getting a carbon bonus over their competitors – either by being able to sell allowances or not needing to buy them.
• Energy intensives who have been most concerned about the impact of the ETS have nevertheless derived benefits from it, such as being better able to manage and reduce their emissions. Some would like changes to the allocation method to recognise the lower life time emissions of products which are infinitely recyclable.
• Although the recession in Europe caused the carbon price to drop very low, carbon reductions continued as companies strove to improve efficiency to stay afloat.

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