Chinese company wins energy award

DURBAN, South Africa - Chinese company Suntech won a Gigaton Award on Sunday for outstanding business leadership in carbon emissions reduction.

The award was jointly presented by the Carbon War Room (CWR), the Gigaton Throwdown, and the World Climate Summit on the sidelines of UN climate talks taking place here.

The Gigaton Prize was awarded to Suntech, the company that has grown the renewables energy sector, while at the same time, growing a profitable business, according to a press release.

Awards were also presented to other energy companies which include Tesco of UK, Philips of the Netherlands, Schneider Electric of France, Swisscom of Switzerland and Centrica of UK.

The Gigaton Awards celebrate high standards of disclosure, exemplary performance, and inspirational behavior to lead their respective sectors to long term sustainability.

"We applaud the 2011 Gigaton winners for their outstanding efforts that will set the industry standard in carbon reduction and sustainability," said Sir Richard Branson, Co-Founder of the CWR.

"My fellow Academy of judges picked the very best companies from a great shortlist, and we look forward to seeing the ripple effect their efforts will inspire."

Twenty-five companies were nominated for awards, based on an assessment of performance on a range of metrics, including disclosure, and reductions in the volume and intensity of emissions over the last year, said the release.

Company data was taken from the Carbon Disclosure Project's Global 500 Report which examines the carbon reduction activities at the world's largest public corporations.  This information was then analyzed by the CWR and its partner, Greenstar, along qualitative and quantitative criteria specific to their sector.

The CWR harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to unlock gigaton- scale, market-driven solutions to climate change.

The Gigaton Throwdown Initiative inspires companies, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and investors to think big about solutions to the climate crisis.

The World Climate Summit is a new, open and collaborative framework for business, finance and government leaders to accelerate solutions to climate change until 2020. It is a global platform facilitating large-scale collaboration between businesses, financiers, philanthropists and governments on regional, national and global solutions to climate change.