Delivering on the European Green Deal A Private Sector Perspective 2025

European companies are global leaders in setting emission reduction targets.13 Since the inception of the European Green Deal in 2019, the share of analysed companies with emission reduction targets has steadily increased from 60% to 89% in 2022.14 The trend has been similar across all industry sectors, without notable deviations.15 These targets are associated with a 28% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions of analysed companies between 2019-2023. Their Scope 3 emissions, however, remained relatively stable.16 In comparison, emissions of the entire private sector17 in the EU27 decreased by 11% over the same period.18 US private sector emissions19 dropped by 6% between 2019 and 2023.20 In China, private sector emissions increased by 7% between 2019 and 2022.21 1.1 Emissions Environmental target setting by the European companies (% of companies with targets) FIGURE 1 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Percentage of companies with targetsGHG emission reduction Waste Increase of renewable energy use Supply chain audits related to environmental criteria Environmental criteria in supplier selection Water resource management Energy efficiency 2019 2020 2021 202260% 71% 86% 89% 34% 37% 42% 45% 24% 32% 38% 43% 35% 41% 34% 38% 47% 45% 38% 34% 25% 27% 31% 32% 25% 30% 28% 31% Note: Sample size: N = 408. Source: Accenture analysis; ESG Book. A recent analysis confirms that among the largest global companies, European ones are more likely to adopt decarbonization targets. In 2024, 96% of European G2000 companies (the world’s largest 2,000 companies by revenue) have some kind of emission reduction targets in place, and 64% have full net-zero commitments across all three scopes of emissions. The adoption of full net-zero commitments is two times higher in Europe than in other regions.22 The same analysis suggests that on top of target setting, European companies introduce more decarbonization initiatives than their global peers and hence are more successful in reducing their emissions.23 Delivering on the European Green Deal: A Private Sector Perspective 7