Environmental Proactiveness of Nasdaq Helsinki Industrial Companies : a comparative study of 2024 climate performance

Abstract

This study presents a methodology for comparing the environmental proactiveness and climate performance of industrial companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. Commercial ESG rating providers typically rely on different metrics and show divergence by defining them inconsistently. This is usually for Scope 3 emissions, where they apply various unique weighting and scoring methodologies. Even under the European Union’s new CSRD and ESRS requirements, early practice still allows companies to use their own judgement in determining what is material and relevant. These differences in Scope 3 calculations, along with temporary regulatory exemptions, mean that current sustainability reports do not yet allow a fully reliable and direct comparison between firms. This study examines publicly accessible online annual reports of companies for the Fiscal Year 2024 (FY2024). The dataset covers Scope 1, market-based Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions, along with a renewable’s indicator for energy consumption. To facilitate a reasonable comparison among companies of varying sizes, all emission figures were transformed into intensity metrics by dividing total emissions by company revenue (€ million). The sample consists of 23 Nasdaq Helsinki Industrials businesses, which include both heavy-manufacturing and industrial service-providers to ensure a thorough industry comparison. This sample represents a snapshot of the sector as of the 2025 data collection period. The companies that did not disclose all four required environmental indicators for the FY2024 reporting year were excluded to maintain the mathematical integrity of the scoring model. Min-max normalisation was then applied to normalise all four indicators to a 0-1 scale and the higher scores were applied to the intensities with the lower emissions. The four scaled indicators were averaged with equal weights to form a single Proactiveness Score. The findings indicate that the largest differences among companies are from Scope 3 intensity, and that the firms with the best scores excel in all four indicators rather than a single area. Due to the application of min-max normalisation, the highest and lowest performers in each category are fixed at 1.000 and 0.000, respectively. This reflects their relative position within this specific peer group rather than absolute performance. It should be noted that the ‘0.000’ reported for Scope 1 by certain firms reflects a complete absence of direct operational emissions in their FY2024 disclosures. A strong positive correlation (r = 0.768413) was observed between a company’s renewable energy share and its final Proactiveness Score. This highlights energy transition as a primary driver of environmental standing within this peer group. A company’s production methods naturally affect its emission levels, and these intensities differ across various industrial activities. Thus, the results should be interpreted with caution due to the structural differences between heavy manufacturing and service-oriented industrial activities, which naturally influence baseline emission intensities. The study is limited to environmental data from FY2024 and only includes companies where all four data points were available following a complete-case rule. Future research could test how the results change under different weighting systems or alternative scaling methods.