In 2023, 90% of industrial companies adopted an environmental practice

Of the 9,827 industrial companies with 100 or more employees in Brazil in 2023, 89 percent had implemented at least one environmental initiative or practice in water resources, solid waste, energy efficiency, recycling and reuse, land use, and atmospheric emissions, a recent study by statistics bureau IBGE found.

Initiatives related to solid waste and recycling and reuse were the most mentioned. They were named by 79.6 and 75.1 percent of businesses respectively. Energy efficiency and water resources come next: more than half of the enterprises said they had such initiatives and practices—61.5 and 57.1 percent respectively. Atmospheric emissions and land use appear to be the least often adopted.

The results show that environmental initiatives and practices have become quite widespread in industrial organizations, albeit to different degrees. Among the sectors with the highest proportion of businesses that had at least one environmental initiative or practice related to the topics investigated, the following stand out: the manufacture of beverages (100% of businesses); the manufacture of coke, petroleum products, and biofuels (99.4%); the manufacture of rubber and plastic products (95.9%); the manufacture of computer, electronic, and optical equipment (95.8%); and the manufacture of pharmaceutical-chemical and pharmaceutical products (95.1%).

On the other hand, the economic activities with the lowest proportion of enterprises were the manufacture of wood products (81%); the manufacture of clothing and accessories (75.1%); and the manufacture of maintenance, repair and installation of machinery and equipment (56.4%).

Size

The survey showed that the larger the companies, the greater the proportion of those with at least one environmental initiative or practice in 2023. The text points to greater engagement by businesses with 500 or more employees in some activity linked to reducing negative impacts on the environment.

In all employee groups, the highlights were the topics associated with solid waste and recycling and reuse, respectively: 93.6 and 90.2 percent in organizations with 500 or more employees; 87.7 and 82.5 percent in those with 250–499 employees; and 72 and 67.3 percent in those with 100–249 employees.

On the other hand, and because it is the topic least often addressed by enterprises, land use was observed in 40.2 percent of companies with 500 or more employees and in only 17.6 percent of those with 100 to 249 employees.

The report points out that both water resources and atmospheric emissions, despite being practices adopted by a high proportion of the larger organizations, only had an incidence of 47 and 34.8 percent respectively among companies with 100–249 people employed.

Expenditure

In terms of spending, the study showed that, of the 9,827 companies investigated, 7,194 (73.2%) made some kind of expenditure on environmental initiatives and practices in 2023.

The document shows the sectors in which the highest proportion of businesses invested in environmental practices, namely: manufacture of beverages (92.6%), manufacture of coke, petroleum products and biofuels (88.4%), and manufacture of tobacco products (87.6%).

On the other hand, the sectors in which the lowest percentage of companies reported spending on their respective environmental issues were: manufacture of wood products (57.8%); manufacture of miscellaneous products (57.5%); and the maintenance, repair, and installation of machinery and equipment (31.1%).