Wine Industry Report

Diageo was honoured as “Best in Class” in its approach to climate change in a report released yesterday by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a coalition of global investors with more than $31.5 trillion in assets. The CDP report, written by the consultancy Innovest, is a survey of the responses of FT500 corporations to the issue of climate change. In the report, Diageo was included in the “Climate Leadership Index”, a prestigious honour roll for global corporations addressing the challenges of climate change.

The Climate Leadership Index is comprised of 50 FT500 companies that showed distinction in their responses to the Carbon Disclosure Project survey based on their reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and an independent assessment of Diageo’s climate change strategies.

Geoffrey Bush, Diageo director of corporate citizenship commented ‘Reducing our contribution to climate change is a key objective of Diageo’s environmental management, and part of being a good corporate citizen. It is expected by our stakeholders, and has a positive impact on our sustainability as a business.

Being honoured as Best in Class and included in the Climate Leadership Index is a tremendous honour for Diageo and great encouragement for our teams who work with such passion, particularly at our production sites, to keep improving our environmental performance.’

Candidates for the Climate Leadership Index were assessed relative to their peers in ten highest carbon-impact clusters. Innovest used a proprietary carbon risk model to analyse the net carbon exposure of all industry sectors represented in the FT500. On the basis of this analysis, it selected the ten industry clusters with the highest exposure to carbon risks and opportunities. The methodology used to score company responses to CDP4 can be found in Appendix II of the online report, which is available at www.cdproject.net.

Diageo was judged among the best in its sector. Climate Leadership Index members in this sector were distinguished by the disclosure of their strategic awareness of the risks and opportunities of a carbon constrained environment, as well as the quality and effectiveness of programs put in place to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.

“Diageo has set itself apart among FT500, by enacting a commendable response to global climate change,” said CDP Coordinator, Paul Dickinson. “The global investment community is keenly aware of the risks associated with climate change and hope corporations such as Diageo provide a solid example for others in its peer group to follow.”

About CDP:

The Carbon Disclosure Project is a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in New York. The group of investors is not a legal entity and the Carbon Disclosure Project has no authority to make any other statement on behalf of the participants. Full details on CDP, the CDP reports and the responses from corporations can be found at www.cdproject.net
The CDP4 report was written by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors www.innovestgroup.com