Producing industrial gases is immensely energy intensive — making Linde one of the largest energy users you’ve probably never heard of. It the Carbon Disclosure Project's largest corporate electricity consumer, using reported 42.5 million MWh — equivalent to the generation of 30 coal-fired power stations — per year. To give a sense of the pure scale, Linde plc consumes more electricity than 16 individual OECD countries, including Denmark and Ireland. This power hungry company has Scope 2 (direct) emissions larger than those reported by Shell and BP.
Yet, according to Linde and the ESG rating world, Linde is a sustainability leader, with an A rating from MSCI, and a feature in the FTSE4Good Sustainability Index for 8 years running. It was rated higher on ESG than its key competitor, Air Liquide, despite having weaker climate targets.
The company’s reported emissions also don’t tell the full story. Linde appears to shift electricity emissions from several large business sectors into Scope 3 (its indirect emissions), where standards are weaker and accountability is lower. Our investigation found evidence that Linde's emissions may be up to double what they report, if they were to use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Despite its public commitment to carbon neutrality, Linde’s emissions have risen over the past 5 years, and its power consumption keeps rising. Linde says it sources one-third of its energy from “low-carbon” sources – but this includes passive grid energy which it did not actively source, and nuclear energy (making up 25% of the ‘renewables’ it actively purchases). When tested against our standards, only 6.2% of its total energy meets renewable energy procurement and additionality criteria – far behind other large-scale energy users and trailing its main competitor, Air Liquide. The company also claims its products help its customers ‘avoid’ emissions, yet our investigation found up to 70% of this claim to be misleading.
