Pace of Change 2026: The CSRD Climate Statements of the Fortune 500 Europe

Key conclusions

Europe's largest companies are cutting, but unevenly. Removing what their net-zero targets leave behind would take more than 60 times the removal credits retired in the voluntary market in 2025.

02EmissionsIn 2025, 89 companies outside finance cut their footprint and 42 grew it, and the cuts did not come from selling less: their combined emissions fell 3% while revenue stayed flat. Five of six aerospace and defence companies grew as they produced more aircraft and engines. 84% of companies reduced the emissions they control directly, yet 22 of them still ended the year with a larger footprint.03Targets65% of companies have a net-zero target. Telecoms lead: 90% have one, and 60% aim for 2040 or earlier. Aerospace and defence trails with 22%. Among countries, Sweden leads: 73% of its companies have a net-zero target across all scopes, against 40% in Germany.04Carbon creditsOnly 9% of the credits these companies used for 2025 were removals. Eni and Shell, the largest buyers, account for almost half of all credits and bought almost no removals. Banks and insurers buy far less, but 29% of their credits by volume are removals.05RemovalsOn the illustrative path in the SBTi's new standard, these companies would need more than a billion tonnes of removals a year by 2040, while all durable removals delivered to date add up to 1.7 million. What their own net-zero targets leave behind would cost €51 to 68 billion a year from 2050, at €100 a tonne.

Notes and method

We compare each company's latest reporting year with the year before. Only a change of more than 1% counts as growth or a cut, and only like-for-like changes count. The removal demand comes from the companies' own net-zero targets, leaves out banks and insurers, and is priced at the median internal carbon price the companies disclose (€100 a tonne). Removal credits retired in the voluntary market in 2025 are from Carbon Direct (now Relae), 10 February 2026. Durable removals delivered to date are from CDR.fyi, 14 October 2026.

Emissions

42 of 152

companies grew their footprint

5 of 6 in aerospace and defence

Targets

9 of 10

telecoms have a net-zero target

2 of 9 in aerospace and defence

Carbon credits

9%

of credits used for 2025 are removals

29% at banks and insurers, 1% in energy

Removals

€51–68bn

a year from 2050 to remove what net-zero targets leave behind

>60× the removal credits retired in the voluntary market in 2025

01 Scope

We read the ESRS climate statements of Europe's largest companies.

We started with the 2026 Fortune 500 Europe, the continent's 500 largest companies by revenue. Of these, 345 are headquartered in the EU or EEA, where the new sustainability reporting law applies. Of those, 301 published a statement under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) for 2025. We added 22 Swiss and British companies that publish ESRS-compliant disclosures as well. That makes 323 statements from 21 countries.

From the Fortune 500 Europe to the samplecompanies

The sample by country and sector

	Financials	Energy	Industrials	Materials	Autos	Transport	Retailing	Food & bev.	Health care	Chemicals	Telecoms	Engineering	Technology	Business services	Aerospace & defence	Food & drug stores	Wholesalers	Apparel	Household products	Hotels & leisure	Media	Total
Germany	9	7	2	5	8	5	6	1	5	4	1		2	1	2		1	2	2	1	1	65
France	12	6	5	1	5	4	2	4	1	2	2	3	2	3	3	1	1	3	1	1	1	63
Italy	11	5	1		3	2					1	2			1	1						27
Sweden	4	1	4	3	1		2				1	1	1	1	1	1			1			22
Netherlands	7	1			1		2	1	1	1		2	1	1	1	1					1	21
Spain	5	4			1		2		1		1	1										15
Switzerland	2		2	1				2	1	2	1		2	1						1		15
Denmark	2	2	1			2		3	1					1								12
Belgium	3			1				1	1	1	1					1	1					10
Finland	2	2	2	2									1				1					10
Norway	1	3		1			1			1	1						1					9
Poland	2	4		1												1	1					9
Austria	4	2	1	1								1										9
U.K.		1		1		1		1	1					2					1			8
Ireland		2	1	1		1		1	1													7
Luxembourg		1		2						1	1		1									6
Portugal		2														2						4
Greece		4																				4
Czech Republic		2													1							3
Hungary	1	2																				3
Liechtenstein			1																			1
Total	65	51	20	20	19	15	15	14	13	12	10	10	10	10	9	8	6	5	5	3	3	323

Notes and method

Of the 155 companies outside the EU and EEA, we left out 31 Russian companies and checked the other 124, which are British, Swiss and Turkish. Of the 44 EU companies without a statement, 22 are unlisted or listed outside regulated EU markets, 20 are listed only outside the EU, most of them in New York, and 2 are incorporated in Luxembourg, which had not transposed the directive.

02a Emissions

More than one in four companies reported a growing footprint. In aerospace and defence, five of six did.

Europe's largest companies cut their footprint in 2025, and not by selling less: their combined emissions fell 3% while revenue stayed flat. However, five of six aerospace and defence companies grew: producing an aircraft counts the fuel it will burn over its life, so more production means more tonnes. MTU Aero Engines, Leonardo and Airbus grew more slowly than their revenue; Safran and Thales grew emissions faster than theirs.

Airlines flew a little more efficiently but a lot more in general: Air France-KLM cut its emissions per tonne-kilometre by 2%, traffic grew faster, so its total emissions rose 4%. Telecoms had one of the biggest cuts, 7% in a year, with four of five companies down. By country, Germany cut the most of those with ten or more companies observed, much of it from its carmakers, while Switzerland's rise is ABB alone.

Change in reported footprint, by industry

Latest reporting year against the year before, for 152 companies whose change is like-for-like.

42 of 152

companies grew their footprint

5 of 6

aerospace and defence companies grew

−7%

telecoms combined, in 2025

**Dr. Stuart Parkinson** Executive Director, Scientists for Global Responsibility

Notes and method

We compare each company's latest reporting year with the year before, on the same boundary, and use the restated prior year where the report gives one. Only a change of more than 1% counts as growth or a cut. Many companies did not restate the year before after an acquisition, a divestment or a change in method. Where such a change exists, we set the company aside instead of counting it as growing or cutting. That applies to 76 companies. Banks and insurers are left out of the counts and the chart. Many of them changed how they count financed emissions (Scope 3 category 15) in 2025, so their year-on-year change says nothing about their real footprint.

Emissions per euro of revenue are Scope 1, 2 (market-based) and 3, divided by the revenue in the same report. Revenue is in current prices, so a price swing moves it as much as a change in emissions does: precious metals increased Heraeus's revenue by 47%, and lower power prices reduced RWE's revenue by 27%. We convert other currencies at the ECB's 2025 average rate, the same rate for both years. For an industry or a country, we divide the summed emissions by the summed revenue of its companies with a like-for-like change. We only show industries and countries (by headquarters) with at least four such companies.

02b Emissions

Cleaner operations do not always mean a smaller footprint.

About four in five companies cut their operational emissions (Scope 1 and 2) in 2025, by 7% at the median. These are the emissions a company controls directly, and the levers work fast: renewable power and electric fleets show up within a year or two.

The rest of the footprint moves at the pace of suppliers and customers, so cleaner operations do not guarantee a smaller footprint. Of the 123 companies whose operational and total change we can compare like for like, 22 cut their operational emissions and still grew overall. Ørsted is the clearest case: it stopped burning coal and cut its operational emissions by three quarters, but it sold more gas and the coal it still had in stock, and its total footprint grew by 11%.

Targets show the same gap. Of the 125 companies with a target for both, 101 are on track in their operations but only 75 in their value chains.

Targets ahead, joined
Net zero
Net zero, 90% cut assumed

141 of 167

companies cut their operational emissions

22

cut operational emissions and still grew in total

Notes and method

Operational emissions are Scope 1 plus market-based Scope 2. We compare the latest reporting year with the year before, and only a change of more than 1% counts as growth or a cut. As for the whole footprint, we set aside changes that come from an acquisition, a divestment or a change in method.

For target progress, we draw one line per company that reports both its base year and FY2025 on the same boundary, as a share of its base year as the company recalculated it. We then check FY2025 against the straight line from the base year to the next target. Where the base year was not restated after an acquisition, a divestment or a change in method, the line is grey and not rated. Milestones are joined as the company discloses them, so the line is not a forecast. Where a company has a net-zero target but states no remaining emissions, we draw it at a 90% cut, the SBTi's minimum.

03 Targets

Telecoms set the most ambitious targets and cut 7% in a year. Aerospace and defence sets the least, and grew.

Almost all telecoms have a net-zero target, and most plan to get there by 2040, ten years ahead of the usual 2050. Every one has targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. Aerospace and defence is the opposite case, with a net-zero target at only two of its nine companies.

Those early dates come with faster cuts. Outside telecoms too, companies aiming for net zero by 2040 cut the emissions from their own operations 1.6 times as fast in 2025 as those aiming for 2050.

Among countries, Sweden stands out. About three in four of its companies have a target for the whole value chain, against two in five in Germany and fewer than half in France.

Most of these targets are far off: 119 of the 210 companies with a net-zero target set it for 2045 or later, so nothing yet pushes them to secure the removals they will need.

Every net-zero and neutrality target, by sector and year252 targets, 199 companies. Point at a mark for the company and the exact target.

Swipe the chart sideways to reach 2050.

**Dr. Franklyn Kanyako** Research Scientist, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Chapter Scientist, State of CDR

Notes and method

We count any net-zero target as the report states it. An all-scope target covers Scope 1, 2 and 3, though some cover only selected Scope 3 categories. SBTi status comes from the SBTi dashboard as of 22 September 2026.

04 Carbon credits

Only 9% of credits these companies used for 2025 were removals.

The Fortune 500 Europe companies retired 26 million tonnes of carbon credits for 2025, and only 2.2 million of them were carbon removals. Net zero needs removals: tonnes taken back out of the atmosphere to balance the emissions a company cannot reduce. No regulation requires a share of removals yet. About 45% of the companies that disclose the split used none at all, and the median company's share was 9%.

Most of the credit volume is concentrated in a few energy companies. Eni and Shell alone account for almost half of all retired credits, yet almost none of their credits were removals. Without the energy companies the share of removals rises from 9% to 22% of retired credits. Banks and insurers retire far fewer credits but more removals than any other sector: 29% of their credits by volume are removals.

A few companies have already moved to removals only: BBVA and ASML used only removals, and Deutsche Telekom nearly so.

Credits retired for 2025 by sector, Mt

Removal
Reduction or avoidance
Split not disclosed

9%

of credits used for 2025 are removals

1%

of energy companies' credits are removals

29%

of banks' and insurers' credits are removals

**Antti Vihavainen** Co-founder and Vice Chairman, Puro.earth

Notes and method

Volume is the credits a company reports under ESRS E1-7 for the reporting year, retired or cancelled. A removal share tells what kind of credit a company bought, not whether the credit delivers what it claims. We only show sectors with at least two companies that state the split.

05a Removals

According to the SBTi V2 standard's illustrative path, Europe's largest companies would need more than a billion tonnes of removals a year by 2040. All durable removals delivered to date are only 1.7 million.

The SBTi's new standard brings the need for removals forward. From 2035, companies with SBTi targets would balance part of the emissions they still have with removals, and that part grows every year until they reach net zero. For Europe's largest companies, demand would peak in the mid-2040s.

Their own net-zero targets point the same way. The 144 companies that have one would need 500 to 700 million tonnes of removals a year once their target years arrive. Yet only 9% of the credits they retired for 2025 were removals.

Supply is far behind. Buyers have contracted over 50 million tonnes of durable removals, and only 3% of that has been delivered. The world as a whole faces the same gap: The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal (2026) finds that newer methods such as biochar, BECCS and direct air capture must grow more than a thousand-fold by 2050.

Removals these companies would need, Mt CO2e a year, outside financialsEmissions fall in a straight line from FY2025 to what remains at the net-zero year. Where a company does not state what remains, we estimate 5% to 10% of its base-year emissions.

Implied removals, midpoint
No removals before the net-zero year (SBTi companies by 2050)
All durable removals delivered to date

1.4–1.5 Gt

of removals a year at the peak, under the SBTi standard

0.5–0.7 Gt

a year on the companies' own net-zero targets

1.7 Mt

of durable removals delivered worldwide, to date

Notes and method

The chart covers companies outside finance. 144 of them have a net-zero target, and 183 have an SBTi-validated target, 62 of those without a net-zero target of their own.

For what remains at the target year, we use the company's own figure where it gives one (92 companies), otherwise 5% to 10% of base-year emissions, in line with the SBTi's minimum cut of 90%. Emissions fall in a straight line from FY2025 to that level. The SBTi V2 line follows the Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 (June 2026), which applies only to targets submitted from 2028 and calls its path after 2035 illustrative. The chart shows what the targets imply, not how many removals companies will actually buy.

Sources: durable removals contracted and delivered from CDR.fyi (14 October 2026); removal credits retired in 2025 from Carbon Direct, now Relae (10 February 2026); removals today and the growth needed from The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 3rd edition (June 2026).

05b Removals

Removing what remains would cost Europe's largest companies 1.2% to 1.6% of their revenue from 2050, if removal supply is built in time.

At €100 a tonne, the long-run price estimate for durable removals, the 144 companies with net-zero targets would spend €51 to 68 billion a year on removals from 2050, 1.2% to 1.6% of their combined revenue. For most of them the bill stays below 1% of revenue. Energy companies and carmakers carry more than half of it, and for seven companies it would exceed 5%.

How much each company has to remove is largely its own call. Residual emissions depend on the business, yet 82 of the 92 companies that state theirs pick exactly 10% of their base-year emissions, the most the SBTi allows.

Residual emissions aren't a fixed physical category; they are whatever gets negotiated as unavoidable. So the decision shouldn't sit with companies or with voluntary frameworks they can shape, but with independent, publicly accountable bodies working with enforceable standards.

Dr. Alina Brad Senior Scientist, University of Vienna, co-author of research on residual emissions in EU industry

€100 a tonne is reachable only if removal supply scales. Today durable removals cost several times that: BECCS, one of the most mature methods, cost $330 a tonne in 2025 and is projected to stay flat or rise.

We finally see the shift the Oxford Principles asked for: companies outside the energy sector are buying more removals. But today's volumes, especially of durable removals, are still a rounding error next to what net zero will need. Without demand now, the infrastructure won't get built, and removals may be too expensive when companies need them most.

Kaya Axelsson Lead author, Oxford Offsetting Principles, University of Oxford

What remains at the net-zero year and its cost against revenue, by sectorLeft: solid is the low estimate of residual emissions (5%) for companies that don’t state theirs in their reports, hatched is the high (10%). Right: the cost as a share of 2025 revenue from the Fortune 500 Europe list.

Notes and method

The bill covers the 144 companies outside finance with a net-zero target, on their own targets. For what remains, we use the company's own figure, otherwise 5% to 10% of base-year emissions. We price removals at €100 a tonne. That is the long-run target for durable removals (Frontier and McKinsey, $100 to 150) and the median of the 95 internal carbon prices (shadow prices and internal fees) disclosed in the reports, converted to euro. Revenue is from the Fortune 500 Europe 2026 (FY2025), at 0.92 EUR per USD. Durable removal prices: Meissner, Burke and Taschini, Carbon dioxide removal prices and the challenge of emissions trading system integration (LSE Grantham Research Institute, June 2026), from 43 Mt of contracted durable removals. EU ETS review: the European Commission’s proposal of 17 July 2026 adds 250 million allowances, auctioned from 2031 to 2040, and spends the revenue on certified BioCCS and DACCS removals (ICAP, 23 July 2026).

We left banks and insurers out. Under the SBTi's standard for financial institutions, removing what remains in their portfolios is up to the companies they finance.

Methodology, sources and limitations

Population and sources

Our dataset covers the Fortune 500 Europe 2026. Of these, 345 are headquartered in the EU or EEA, and 301 of those published an ESRS statement for 2025. We also checked 124 British, Swiss and Turkish groups, leaving out Russian companies, and added the 22 that publish an ESRS-compliant report too. That makes a total of 323 companies in the report.

Everything we say about a company in Pace of Change comes from its own FY2025 annual report, sustainability statement and their annexes. There are two exceptions: SBTi status, taken from the public SBTi target dashboard, and the revenue we set the removal bill against, taken from the Fortune 500 Europe list. In total we analysed more than 130,000 pages.

Data as of the FY2025 statements published by 1 September 2026.

Methodology

Collecting the data

We sourced the public FY2025 reports of every company on the list and brought their data on emissions, targets, carbon credits and removals into one format. Where a report was ambiguous, for example when the scope of a target is unclear, we left the value empty. The full dataset, with the report page behind every value, is at senken.io/paceofchange/dataset.

Year-on-year change

Companies' FY2025 reports are very inconsistent in what they cover. Many companies did not restate the year before after an acquisition, a divestment or an accounting change. We applied strict conditions and counted a change only where we could trace that it is like-for-like, or where the company restated the year before itself. Under these conditions 54 companies are left out of the change in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and 76 of the change across all scopes. Only a change of more than 1% counts as growth or a cut.

Pace to target

To show whether a company is on pace, we draw a straight line from its base-year emissions to the level it has promised for its next target year, and check whether its reported 2025 emissions are above or below the line. The line does not tell whether a company will meet its target. It shows whether it has cut enough so far to stay on course, or will have to cut faster in the years it has left. We only rated companies that report their base-year, 2025 and target emissions on the same boundary, which is not often the case. We also left out 29 target lines, drawn grey in the chart, whose base year was not restated after an acquisition, a divestment or a change in method. That leaves 211 companies rated on Scope 1 and 2, 142 on Scope 3 and 82 on all scopes.

Removal demand

When a company has a net-zero target, whatever emissions remain in its target year have to be balanced with carbon removals. We use the remaining emissions the company states. Where it states none, we assume 5% to 10% of its base-year emissions remain, in line with the SBTi's minimum reduction of 90%, and that emissions fall in a straight line from 2025 to that level.

For companies with an SBTi-validated target we also apply the ramp in the SBTi's new Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 (June 2026): from 2035, removals cover 1% of ongoing emissions, rising every year to 100% in the net-zero year. The standard is mandatory only for targets submitted after January 2028 and calls the path after 2035 illustrative, so this part can still change. These numbers show what today's targets imply and are not a forecast.

Removal price

In this report we price the removals from 2050 at €100 a tonne, for three reasons. First, the buyer group Frontier backs only methods that can get below $100 a tonne at scale. Second, McKinsey puts the long-term goal for the carbon removal price at $100 to 150 a tonne. Third, €100 is the median internal carbon price of the 95 companies in this report that disclose one. It is at the low end of what removals are expected to cost. Today durable removals cost €170 to over €1,000 a tonne (Senken price guide), and the CDR.fyi pricing survey does not expect them to reach $100 across the board by 2030.

Banks and insurers

We left banks and insurers out of the year-on-year change and the emissions intensity in chapter 02, and out of the removal demand and the bill in chapter 05. Almost all of their footprint is financed emissions (Scope 3): the emissions of the companies they lend to, invest in and insure. Many of them changed how they count these in 2025, so their numbers do not compare from one year to the next. Many of the companies they finance are also in this report, so adding their share would count the same tonnes twice. And under the SBTi's standard for financial institutions, removing what remains in a portfolio is up to the companies in it.

About this report

Authors

Adrian Wons, CEO and Founder, Senken, and Katya Pranitskaya, Senken.

Thanks

We thank the experts who read the advance copy and shared their views: Rosalie Arendt, Alina Brad, Matthew Brander, Morgan Edwards, Robert Höglund, Franklyn Kanyako, Alexander Mäkelä, Stuart Parkinson, Andreas Rasche, Niklas Stolz, Francesco Tripoli and Antti Vihavainen.

They took part in a personal capacity and are not affiliated with Senken. They speak for themselves, not for their organisations, and their help or a quote does not mean they endorse this report, its findings or Senken. Any errors are ours.

Disclosures

Senken is a carbon credit marketplace and sells carbon credits, including removals. It is a listed partner of Puro.earth, whose co-founder Antti Vihavainen is quoted in chapter 04, and is listed on CDR.fyi, whose co-founder Robert Höglund is quoted in chapter 05 and whose figures we use for durable removals.

Dataset

The full dataset behind this report is available at senken.io/paceofchange/dataset. Corporates, researchers and journalists are welcome to analyse the data.

To request access, reach out to katya@senken.io.

#	Company	Scope 1	Scope 2	Scope 3	Credits	Net zero
1	Volkswagen	2.7 Mt	900 kt	884 Mt	680 kt	–
2	Shell	69.0 Mt	8.0 Mt	1,065 Mt	5.8 Mt	2050
5	TotalEnergies	42.2 Mt	1.6 Mt	335 Mt	61.6 kt	–
6	Stellantis	1.3 Mt	1.2 Mt	389 Mt	–	2050
7	BMW	667 kt	144 kt	128 Mt	25.0 kt	2050
8	Mercedes-Benz	500 kt	100 kt	119 Mt	600 kt	–
9	Santander	40.2 kt	11.5 kt	1.4 Mt	51.7 kt	–
10	BNP Paribas	21.5 kt	51.8 kt	94.5 Mt	192 kt	–

Open the dataset