Only one in five of the UK's top brands are cutting their emissions and have ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gases in line with Government goals, a study showed today.

The research from the University of Edinburgh Business School found that 121 brands including Tesco, T-Mobile, Dell and BMW were all cutting their emissions and have targets in line with the Government's goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 34% on 1990 levels by 2020 — or by 1.7% a year.

But some 400 brands are either increasing emissions, have targets which are weaker than the Government's goal or do not publish information on their carbon emissions.

Big names including Google, McKinsey and Amazon do not report their emissions while 320 — such as Porsche, Harvey Nichols and McDonalds — have no public emissions reductions targets.

Of the brands that did report their emissions, 122 (54%) saw their greenhouse gas output increase, including Barclays, Sky and eBay, the research found.

Some sectors including pharmaceuticals, publishers, food retail and telecoms performed strongly, while the weakest were car rentals, hotel and general retail.

The first annual survey of the carbon emissions performance of 600 of the UK's, food retail leaders included Asda, M&S, the Co-op, Sainsbury's and Morrisons were “climate leaders”, while Iceland, Costcutter and Spar had no available data.

Among airlines, BA and Lufthansa were leading the way, while Aer Lingus was among those not publishing their emissions.

Dr Craig McKenzie, research director of the Brands Emissions Project at Edinburgh University, said: “The 100 or so leading brands show just how much can be done if you set your mind to it.

“But to keep global temperatures within the 2C safe zone, we need all brands to demonstrate the same level of ambition and achievement as these leaders.”