Carbon accounting system: the bridge between carbon governance and carbon performance in Malaysian Companies

Abstract

Research has shown the negative impacts of climate change on the economy and how the state of the environment has been a complex global challenge. Prior studies have suggested immediate actions to avoid any unforeseen circumstances for all living things on Earth. Previous research has also supported all kinds of sustainability efforts as resolutions to address the deterioration of climate change caused by business activities. There is a need for companies to start acting and assigning employees to mitigate carbon emitted by corporations. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence that examines how corporate carbon governance influences better carbon performance of organizations and authorizes organizations to implement and embed carbon accounting. This study used evidence from Malaysia to explore this subject matter and examined the association between carbon governance and carbon performance of corporations. The research also investigated the mediation effect of carbon accounting with respect to carbon governance and carbon performance. It is revealed that carbon governance had no significant influence on an organization's carbon performance, although carbon accounting implementation positively influenced carbon performance. The findings imply that despite its insignificance, carbon accounting remains a vital matter to be deployed by organizations for better carbon emission mitigation.

Carbon management accounting (CMA) practices in Australia’s high carbon-emission industries

“…In this study, the current practice of CMA in Australian high carbon-emitting industries has been thoroughly examined, and the detailed findings have indicated some of its strengths and weaknesses. Ong et al (2021) mentioned that more information on carbon-related practices at a firm level could assist policymakers in evaluating and understanding more actual firm-level carbon performance for their future policy development. Hence, the fact derived from this study that CMA applications are still inconsistent and unclear, even in companies committed to sustainability, shows the importance of policymakers to consider establishing CMA guidelines or standards, which may be expected to become mandatory in the future.…”

“…Secondly, it evaluates detailed aspects of the three CMA phases: collection, interpretation and reporting. Firm-level information could assist policymakers in evaluating and understanding actual firm-level carbon performance for their future policy development (Ong et al , 2021). Companies can also use the findings as learning materials to start or enhance their CMA practices, as this study provides a broader and more detailed perspective of CMA practices across different industries in Australia.…”

“…Secondly, it evaluates detailed aspects of the three CMA phases: collection, interpretation and reporting. Firm-level information could assist policymakers in evaluating and understanding actual firm-level carbon performance for their future policy development (Ong et al, 2021).…”

Strategies for spatial analysis of carbon emissions from human-social systems: A framework based on energy consumption and land use

“…Considering the calculation purpose to clarify the overall performance of carbon emissions, a calculation perspective based on the consumption side is therefore adopted (Ong et al, 2021). The calculation of energy carbon emissions is based on the regional energy balance sheet with the actual energy consumption of industries and sectors, including industrial production system energy carbon emissions, agricultural production system energy carbon emissions, intraurban energy carbon emissions, and rural energy carbon emissions, which are independent parts of each other in terms of spatial landuse types and together form the main source of energy carbon emissions.…”

“…From an efficient point of view, controlling the area of construction land and increasing the carbon emission per unit of construction land area are a feasible land strategy to control human carbon emissions (Stechemesser and Guenther, 2012). The premise of this strategy is that we can know the pattern of construction land and the pattern of energy carbon emission more clearly, and based on the spatial expression of land use, we can know the distribution and change of carbon emission on specific land parcels (Zmami and Ben-Salha, 2020;Ong et al, 2021). This is very consistent with the requirement of carbon neutrality.…”