10 years of carbon pricing in Europe – A business perspective

July 2015 – This report, commissioned by The Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group, was produced to mark the ten-year anniversary of the EU Emissions Trading System. It is based on a series of interviews with companies covered by this cornerstone climate policy who have made notable progress to reduce their carbon emissions during its lifetime.

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Nine companies were included covering a variety of sectors ranging from energy companies and energy intensives, to those for whom the carbon price in Europe is more marginal in impact.

The interviews were free-ranging discussions focusing on what action companies had taken and the drivers behind these actions, whether and how the European carbon price had impacted on these actions and what other carbon reduction policies were relevant.

Interviewees were asked to identify what was helpful and what was more problematic in climate policies and how they hoped these would develop in the future.

Jos Delbeke, Director General of DG Climate Action, was also asked for his insights on how the EU ETS has developed over this period.

The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s longest standing business platform, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (CLG) is a select club of European business leaders working together, under the patronage of The Prince of Wales, to advocate solutions to climate change to policymakers and business peers at the highest level, both within the EU and globally.

The CLG has commissioned this report with the support and engagement of the We Mean Business Coalition and the World Bank Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition.