Three weeks ahead of the landmark UN climate change conference, COP21, 113 companies have been selected as leaders for their work against climate change and placed on the 2015 Climate “A” List.

Produced by international non-profit organisation CDP, formerly Carbon Disclosure Project, the list was compiled in the annual Climate Change Report on behalf of 822 investors representing US$95 trillion. The report highlights the extent to which climate change has shifted in the last five years and how corporations have reshaped their strategies to become part of the climate challenge solution.

With almost 2,000 companies submitting data to be independently assessed against CDP’s scoring system, only around 6% have qualified for the A grade. The three largest global companies by market capitalisation, Apple, Microsoft, Google have all made the list and are joined by UK companies Sky UK, Diageo, Sainsbury’s, Unilever, Carillion and Standard Chartered.

“The influence of the corporation is mighty,” said CDP’s executive chairman and co-founder Paul Dickinson, “The momentum of business action on climate change suggests we have reached a tipping point, where companies are poised to achieve their full potential.”

Over the last five years, companies have begun to take visible action in preparing for a low carbon economy. 94% of the participating 1,997 companies have assigned senior management responsibility to climate change, with three quarters offering incentives for improved climate performance.

In 2010, less than half of businesses had policies in place to lower carbon output, compared with the 90 per cent of companies that do today. The percentage of companies who have targets to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions has also more than doubled in the same period.

Meg Whitman, president and CEO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which qualified as one of the grade A companies, stated that “we must take swift and bold action to address to root causes of climate change.”

Notable absences from the CDP’s analysis are the Agricultural Bank of China, Berkshire Hathaway and Facebook, the three largest companies (in terms of market cap) that failed to disclose company information via CDP.

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