Are Corporate Carbon Management Practices Reducing Corporate Carbon Emissions?

Abstract

This paper is the first large scale, quantitative study of the impact of corporate carbon management practices on corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using data for 2009 and 2010 from the Carbon Disclosure Project survey, we find little compelling evidence that commonly adopted management practices are reducing emissions. This finding is unexpected and we propose three possible explanations for it. First, it may be because corporate carbon data and management practice information have not been reported in a standardized way. Second, there may be a delay between the application of corporate carbon management practices and their impact on emissions performance. Third, carbon management practices are not sufficiently impact-oriented, meaning there is no relationship to observe. Our findings are important for policymakers designing corporate GHG reporting standards, for the multiple stakeholders trying to understand the drivers of corporate carbon performance, and for the corporate managers responsible for measuring, reporting and mitigating emissions.

Determinants and Characteristics of Korean Companies’ Carbon Management under the Carbon Pricing Scheme

“…Some studies have contributed to the outcome of low-carbon operations on economic performance [10], the impact of corporate carbon management practices on corporate GHG emissions [16], significant and steady improvements in energy efficiency [17], and the benefits of environmental management accumulate over time [35].…”

“…Several studies on corporate carbon management have been made, which cover definitions thereof [2]; carbon strategies and management practices [3][4][5][6]; carbon disclosure and accounting [7][8][9]; drivers and challenges [5,[10][11][12]; stakeholder pressures [1,13,14]; outputs of low-carbon operations on economic performance [10,15]; and GHG emissions [16] and energy efficiency [17].…”

A Comparative Study of Firm-Level Climate Change Mitigation Targets in the European Union and the United States

“…The Energy and Materials sectors in the US should strengthen their targets with deeper emission cuts. According to [30], more stringent targets in these two dirty sectors can lead to higher emission reduction. Analysis in Section 4.4 highlights that the Energy sector and the Materials sector in the EU and the US are not making satisfactory progress toward target completion.…”

“…The study argued that the target-setting process should be improved to incorporate well-defined criteria and complete conformity checks. Also, the link between target-setting and emission reduction has been examined based on CDP data of 2009-2010 [30]. Significantly positive associations were identified between target adoption and emission reduction for non-financial sectors, and between target stringency and emission reduction for dirty sectors and sectors under the EU ETS.…”

“…A deeper emission cut from the reference year generally implies, ceteris paribus, a harder task for the firm to reach the target. Literature has shown that target stringency can positively and significantly impact the emission reduction in some sectors [30]. Therefore, stringency is an important attribute to track.…”