TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As governments and businesses put increasing importance on reducing carbon emissions, Taiwanese businesses are faced with the challenge of having to keep up with the world’s footsteps.

In an interview, Everbiz Industrial Co., Ltd., a company that specializes in assembling, processing, and manufacturing cables located in New Taipei City, told Business Today that it received an email from its European client in June. The subject of the email read, “Carbon Reduction Plan.”

The client detailed in the email that since it was striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it wanted to collect its supplier’s carbon reduction plan as well.

Three months later in September, Everbiz received four more email “ultimatums” from the client within the span of a week, urging the company to accelerate its carbon footprint verification (CFV) process. The client also asked the company to translate relevant information on its website into English as soon as possible.

While Everbiz did its best to respond to and comply with its client’s demands, when the client wrote that it hoped its partners can reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% and scope 3 by 15%, the company realized the difficulty to meet the requirement. “It is very difficult for us to reach the goal,” Everbiz was quoted as saying.

In the end, the company promised its client that it will reduce its carbon emissions by 5% in 2023.

Nonetheless, it continued to receive pressure. “About a month or two ago, we received even clearer ‘instructions’ from (the client). In the future, suppliers that have not conducted CFV or are too slow to transition to net zero, they will consider decreasing orders or even cease ordering,” said Everbiz General Manager Antoine Chen (陳泳睿).

He added, “Thankfully, the client thinks that so far, our CFV progress is pretty good.”

According to a Business Today survey conducted in September and October this year, most of Taiwan’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have felt the pressure to transition to a net zero business model. However, it is not easy to reduce carbon emission, and 70% of companies expressed worry that their business will be affected if they must pay a carbon tax in the future.

Additionally, as much as 40% of companies responded that they had not yet launched any action to promote a net-zero transition.