IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausact/v24y2014i1p84-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Carbon Management Systems and Carbon Mitigation

Author

Listed:
  • Qingliang Tang
  • Le Luo

Abstract

type="main"> This article proposes a carbon management system (CMS). The system comprises 10 essential elements from four broad perspectives: carbon governance, carbon operation, emission tracking and reporting, and engagement and disclosure. The proposed new approach focuses on cross-functional integration, enforcement of proactive strategies and group rather than individual accountability. We then use Carbon Disclosure Project reports to examine empirically the implementation of systems by large Australian firms. Overall, we find that firms with higher quality CMS have achieved better carbon mitigation. Further, adequate assessment of carbon risk and opportunity, the presence of reduction targets, the strength of carbon programs and enhanced external disclosures appear to be the most effective elements in our sample firms. We present evidence that, by combining governance, internal process, carbon dioxide-footprint tracking and communication activities, a CMS helps managers improve decision making. We discuss the implications of the findings for accounting practice and education.

Suggested Citation

  • Qingliang Tang & Le Luo, 2014. "Carbon Management Systems and Carbon Mitigation," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 24(1), pages 84-98, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausact:v:24:y:2014:i:1:p:84-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/auar.12010
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hughes, Susan B. & Anderson, Allison & Golden, Sarah, 2001. "Corporate environmental disclosures: are they useful in determining environmental performance?," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 217-240.
    2. Langfield-Smith, Kim, 1997. "Management control systems and strategy: A critical review," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 207-232, February.
    3. Patten, Dennis M., 2002. "The relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: a research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 763-773, November.
    4. Stephen Brammer & Stephen Pavelin, 2006. "Voluntary Environmental Disclosures by Large UK Companies," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(7-8), pages 1168-1188.
    5. Ittner, Christopher D. & Larcker, David F., 1997. "Quality strategy, strategic control systems, and organizational performance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(3-4), pages 293-314.
    6. Jose-Manuel Prado-Lorenzo & Isabel-Maria Garcia-Sanchez, 2010. "The Role of the Board of Directors in Disseminating Relevant Information on Greenhouse Gases," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(3), pages 391-424, December.
    7. Stephen Brammer & Stephen Pavelin, 2006. "Voluntary Environmental Disclosures by Large UK Companies," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(7‐8), pages 1168-1188, September.
    8. Clarkson, Peter M. & Li, Yue & Richardson, Gordon D. & Vasvari, Florin P., 2011. "Does it really pay to be green? Determinants and consequences of proactive environmental strategies," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 122-144, March.
    9. Okereke, Chukwumerije, 2007. "An Exploration of Motivations, Drivers and Barriers to Carbon Management:: The UK FTSE 100," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 475-486, December.
    10. Garnaut,Ross, 2008. "The Garnaut Climate Change Review," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521744447.
    11. Le Luo & Qingliang Tang & Yi‐Chen Lan, 2013. "Comparison of propensity for carbon disclosure between developing and developed countries," Accounting Research Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(1), pages 6-34, July.
    12. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    13. Flamholtz, Eric G. & Das, T. K. & Tsui, Anne S., 1985. "Toward an integrative framework of organizational control," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 35-50, January.
    14. Erin M. Reid & Michael W. Toffel, 2009. "Responding to public and private politics: corporate disclosure of climate change strategies," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(11), pages 1157-1178, November.
    15. Paul A. Griffin & David H. Lont & Estelle Y. Sun, 2017. "The Relevance to Investors of Greenhouse Gas Emission Disclosures," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(2), pages 1265-1297, June.
    16. Larelle Chapple & Peter M. Clarkson & Daniel L. Gold, 2013. "The Cost of Carbon: Capital Market Effects of the Proposed Emission Trading Scheme ( ETS )," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 49(1), pages 1-33, March.
    17. Erin Marie Reid & Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-019, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2009.
    18. Simons, Robert, 1987. "Accounting control systems and business strategy: An empirical analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 357-374, June.
    19. Al-Tuwaijri, Sulaiman A. & Christensen, Theodore E. & Hughes, K. II, 2004. "The relations among environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and economic performance: a simultaneous equations approach," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(5-6), pages 447-471.
    20. Julie Cotter & Muftah M Najah, 2012. "Institutional investor influence on global climate change disclosure practices," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 37(2), pages 169-187, August.
    21. Clarkson, Peter M. & Li, Yue & Richardson, Gordon D. & Vasvari, Florin P., 2008. "Revisiting the relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: An empirical analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(4-5), pages 303-327.
    22. Robert D. Klassen & Curtis P. McLaughlin, 1996. "The Impact of Environmental Management on Firm Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(8), pages 1199-1214, August.
    23. Ans Kolk & David Levy & Jonatan Pinkse, 2008. "Corporate Responses in an Emerging Climate Regime: The Institutionalization and Commensuration of Carbon Disclosure," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 719-745.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luo, Le & Tang, Qingliang, 2016. "Determinants of the Quality of Corporate Carbon Management Systems: An International Study," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 275-305.
    2. Luo, Le & Tang, Qingliang, 2014. "Does voluntary carbon disclosure reflect underlying carbon performance?," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 191-205.
    3. Fan, Hanlu & Tang, Qingliang & Pan, Lipeng, 2021. "An international study of carbon information asymmetry and independent carbon assurance," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    4. Jiang, Yan & Luo, Le & Xu, JianFeng & Shao, XiaoRui, 2021. "The value relevance of corporate voluntary carbon disclosure: Evidence from the United States and BRIC countries," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3).
    5. Tesfaye T. Lemma & Martin Feedman & Mthokozisi Mlilo & Jin Dong Park, 2019. "Corporate carbon risk, voluntary disclosure, and cost of capital: South African evidence," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 111-126, January.
    6. Ozgur Isil & Rose Sebastianelli, 2020. "Arcs of carbon awareness in the value chain and their antecedents," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 503-518, February.
    7. Mumtaheena Anwar & Sohanur Rahman & Md. Nurul Kabir, 2021. "Does national carbon pricing policy affect voluntary environmental disclosures? A global evidence," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(2), pages 211-244, April.
    8. Mahmoudian, Fereshteh & Lu, Jing & Yu, Dongning & Nazari, Jamal A. & Herremans, Irene M., 2021. "Inter-and intra-organizational stakeholder arrangements in carbon management accounting," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    9. Michelon, Giovanna & Pilonato, Silvia & Ricceri, Federica, 2015. "CSR reporting practices and the quality of disclosure: An empirical analysis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 59-78.
    10. X. Meng & S. Zeng & C. Tam, 2013. "From Voluntarism to Regulation: A Study on Ownership, Economic Performance and Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 217-232, August.
    11. Walid Ben‐Amar & Philip McIlkenny, 2015. "Board Effectiveness and the Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Information," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(8), pages 704-719, December.
    12. Xiaohua Meng & Saixing Zeng & Xuemei Xie & Hailiang Zou, 2019. "Beyond symbolic and substantive: Strategic disclosure of corporate environmental information in China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 403-417, February.
    13. Le Luo & Qingliang Tang & Hanlu Fan & Jamie Ayers, 2023. "Corporate carbon assurance and the quality of carbon disclosure," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(1), pages 657-690, March.
    14. Walid Ben-Amar & Millicent Chang & Philip McIlkenny, 2017. "Board Gender Diversity and Corporate Response to Sustainability Initiatives: Evidence from the Carbon Disclosure Project," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 369-383, May.
    15. Fatemi, Ali & Glaum, Martin & Kaiser, Stefanie, 2018. "ESG performance and firm value: The moderating role of disclosure," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 45-64.
    16. Choi, Bobae & Luo, Le, 2021. "Does the market value greenhouse gas emissions? Evidence from multi-country firm data," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    17. Elizabeth Stanny, 2013. "Voluntary Disclosures of Emissions by US Firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 145-158, March.
    18. Antonio J. Mateo‐Márquez & José M. González‐González & Constancio Zamora‐Ramírez, 2021. "The influence of countries' climate change‐related institutional profile on voluntary environmental disclosures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1357-1373, February.
    19. Henri, Jean-François & Journeault, Marc, 2010. "Eco-control: The influence of management control systems on environmental and economic performance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 63-80, January.
    20. Krishnamurti, Chandrasekhar & Velayutham, Eswaran, 2018. "The influence of board committee structures on voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions: Australian evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 65-81.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausact:v:24:y:2014:i:1:p:84-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1035-6908 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.