Does Carbon Disclosure Drive Carbon Performance: An Empirical Analysis

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksArticle in conference proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Authors

With corporate disclosure of carbon emissions rapidly increasing, there is a long standing question as to whether and how environmental disclosure is associated with the development of environmental performance. Thelegitimacy and the management perspectives adopted in previous studies presentdifferent rationaleson this question. The legitimacy approach assumes that disclosure is rather a substitute for poorenvironmental performance whereas the management approach implies that disclosure may createorganizational pressure andincentivesfor companiesto improve performance.This paper examines these two rationales empirically for carbon disclosure and performance. Using a change analysis of Global 500 companies and their carbon emission and disclosure data released during 2008 and 2012, this study finds that the change of carbon disclosure levels is positively associated with the subsequent change of carbon performance (examined through total and Scope 1 carbon emission intensities). So regardless whether disclosure has been used as a legitimising tool for prior poor performance, this study confirms that carbon disclosure motivates companies and has been used as an “outside-in” driven opportunity to create subsequent change and improvement in carbon performance. However, the study also reveals that the association between the changes in carbon disclosure and performance is relatively weaker in high energy intensive firms.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationFrom Sustainability Reporting to Sustainability Management Control : Proceedings of the 17th EMAN Conference 2014
Number of pages5
Place of PublicationRotterdam
PublisherEnvironmental and Sustainability Management Accounting Network
Publication date2014
ISBN (electronic)9789056770006
Publication statusPublished - 2014
EventEMAN Conference 2014: "From Sustainability Reporting to Sustainability Management Control" - Rotterdam, Netherlands
Duration: 27.03.201428.03.2014
Conference number: 17
http://eman-eu.org/conferences/rotterdem-2014/

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Automation in Clinical Laboratories
  2. Increasing personal initiative in small business managers or owners leads to entrepreneurial success: A theory-based controlled randomized field intervention for evidence-based management
  3. The research potential of new types of enterprise data based on surveys from official statistics in Germany
  4. Not Only a Workplace
  5. Who is a Migrant? Abandoning the Nation-State Point of View in the Study of Migration
  6. Wirtschaften in Netzen
  7. Frames of systems change in sustainability transformations: Lessons from sociotechnical systems and circular economy case studies
  8. Der Mensch in Zahlen
  9. The lens of polycentricity
  10. Bimodal Enterprise Architecture Management
  11. Collaborative decision making in sustainable flood risk management
  12. Themes in the development of emotion regulation in childhood and adolescence and a transactional model
  13. Non-local modeling of size effects in amorphous metals
  14. The Impact of TV Ads on the Individual User's Purchasing Behavior
  15. Effect of Temperature and Strain Rate on Formability of Titanium Alloy KS1.2ASN
  16. Lengthscale-dependent modelling of ductile failure in metallic microstructures
  17. Effectiveness of a Web-Based Intervention in Reducing Depression and Sickness Absence
  18. Two types of ‘enough’
  19. Guest Editors of Special Issue:
  20. How and Why Precise Anchors Distinctly Affect Anchor Recipients and Senders
  21. Disrupting Business
  22. Carbon Management Accounting
  23. Situated Institutions: The Role of Place, Space and Embeddedness in Institutional Dynamics
  24. Logistische Lageranalyse und Methodenvalidierung
  25. Inclusive conservation and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
  26. Discourses for deep transformation
  27. Challenges in calculating two-year college student transfer rates to four-year colleges
  28. A review on the use of calcium chloride in applied thermal engineering
  29. Controlling the unsteady analogue of saddle stagnation points
  30. Evaluation von Unterrichtsstandards