RT info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis
T1 Accounting for net-zero emissions
A1 Carrión Moneo, Elena
A2 Universidad de Burgos. Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas
K1 Carbon accounting
K1 Net-zero emissions
K1 Science-based Target initiative
K1 Transition plans
K1 Collective action
K1 Qualitative methods
K1 Contabilidad del carbono
K1 Descarbonización
K1 Planes de transición
K1 Acción colectiva
K1 Investigación cualitativa
K1 Contabilidad
K1 Accounting
K1 Contabilidad social
K1 Social accounting
K1 5303.01 Contabilidad Financiera
K1 5303.05 Contabilidad Social
AB Climate change is a collective action problem that requires urgent and profound transformations to decarbonize the economy and ensure a safe and just operating space for humanity. Transnational companies, which have a key role in ensuring planetary sustainability, have galvanized net-zero commitments in an attempt to recognize the need and opportunity that a low-carbon future brings. In this regard, carbon accounting arises as a common label motivating research on how corporate climate action, regulation, and governance can drive the transition to a low-carbon society.  This thesis explores the role of accounting in translating the global goal of net-zero emissions at the corporate level. This objective is structured across three articles that unfold distinct yet interdependent issues that constitute new approaches to address the pressing issue of climate change. The first article draws on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to identify and problematize the accounting technologies that participate in decarbonization. For this purpose, the paper reviews the technicalities surrounding the Science-based Target initiative, a voluntary initiative that provides the private sector with science-based guidance to reach net-zero emissions. The findings of this first study suggest that the present conceptualization of temporal and spatial boundaries, methods, and monitoring mechanisms are insufficient to mediate between climate urgency and corporate decision-making. With these insights, the second article investigates how science-based targets connect the global temperature limit with business operations through the specific lenses of evaluative infrastructures and the Institutional Analysis and Development framework. Continuing with the case of the Science-based Target initiative for the empirical setting, data collection relies on semi-structured interviews and archival documentation from ten large multinational companies that participate in the Science-based Target initiative. The analysis explains that the interviewed companies, which operate within an infrastructure of collective action challenges that emerge in decarbonization, are not on track to fulfill their committed targets, among other reasons, due to accounting tensions arising in temporal and spatial boundaries, methods, and monitoring mechanisms. The third article explores the construction of the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and corporate net-zero target and their translation into an action plan for decarbonization. It mobilizes the notion of commensuration, or the translation of different qualities into a common metric, with corporate transition plans, which emerge as a tool to ensure a credible and consistent corporate strategy to implement net zero pledges beyond disclosure. The empirical work relies on a qualitative case study research strategy, entailing interviews, archival data, and participant observation, with two companies that have committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and play a significant role in decarbonization due to their size, influence and long-standing trajectory on sustainability policies and actions. The analysis shows that the construction of the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and net-zero target and its translation to the action plan entails controversies, uncertainty, and the emergence of different viewpoints or interpretations. Likewise, the strategy for decarbonization is loosely coupled with measurements of net-zero targets, suggesting that commensuration is not only a technical exercise but also a social and political process.  This thesis contributes to the field of environmental accounting by advancing the understanding of technical accounting details that companies face in the transition to a lowcarbon future. The articles theorize how accounting mediates between the global goal of netzero emissions and the corporate level within an infrastructure of collective action challenges. In the context of climate change as a complex societal problem, it offers practical implications that can guide business managers and policymakers in their decision-making processes.
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10259/9557
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10259/9557
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Burgos
RD 22-dic-2024