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Back in the Driver’s Seat: How New EU Greenhouse-Gas Reporting Schemes Challenge Corporate Accounting

Baehr, Julian ; Zenglein, Florian ; Sonnemann, Guido ; Lederer, Markus ; Schebek, Liselotte (2024)
Back in the Driver’s Seat: How New EU Greenhouse-Gas Reporting Schemes Challenge Corporate Accounting.
In: Sustainability, 16 (9)
doi: 10.3390/su16093693
Article, Bibliographie

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Abstract

Greenhouse-gas (GHG) reporting schemes for companies are increasingly part of climate-mitigation policies worldwide. Notably, the European Green Deal (2019) boosts new public regulations that oblige companies to compile GHG emission inventories, i.e., account for their emissions in a given system boundary. Along with this boost, the workload for companies increases; at the same time, the quality of reporting is questioned. Given the overarching goal to improve companies’ climate-mitigation performance, the quality of reporting is inseparably connected to the quality of the respective accounting. However, the literature discusses carbon accounting as a universal umbrella term focusing on managerial issues, thus disregarding the crucial role of accounting methodologies in the sense of calculation approaches. In this publication, we apply an analytical approach introducing a clear differentiation between the task of quantitatively accounting for GHG inventories and the task of reporting results from calculated inventories in response to stakeholder or policy expectations. We use this approach to investigate European GHG reporting schemes and related GHG accounting methodologies in detail. Our findings indicate that the current phase of the European Green Deal depicts a quantitative growth in reporting schemes and a significant qualitative change by shifting from formerly voluntary to mandatory reporting schemes, along with the application of accounting methodologies originally not intended for politically compulsory purposes. We analyze the consequences of this shift, which poses new challenges for companies and policymakers, i.e., data-management concepts and refined methodological frameworks.

Item Type: Article
Erschienen: 2024
Creators: Baehr, Julian ; Zenglein, Florian ; Sonnemann, Guido ; Lederer, Markus ; Schebek, Liselotte
Type of entry: Bibliographie
Title: Back in the Driver’s Seat: How New EU Greenhouse-Gas Reporting Schemes Challenge Corporate Accounting
Language: English
Date: 28 April 2024
Place of Publication: Basel
Publisher: MDPI
Journal or Publication Title: Sustainability
Volume of the journal: 16
Issue Number: 9
Collation: 20 Seiten
DOI: 10.3390/su16093693
Corresponding Links:
Abstract:

Greenhouse-gas (GHG) reporting schemes for companies are increasingly part of climate-mitigation policies worldwide. Notably, the European Green Deal (2019) boosts new public regulations that oblige companies to compile GHG emission inventories, i.e., account for their emissions in a given system boundary. Along with this boost, the workload for companies increases; at the same time, the quality of reporting is questioned. Given the overarching goal to improve companies’ climate-mitigation performance, the quality of reporting is inseparably connected to the quality of the respective accounting. However, the literature discusses carbon accounting as a universal umbrella term focusing on managerial issues, thus disregarding the crucial role of accounting methodologies in the sense of calculation approaches. In this publication, we apply an analytical approach introducing a clear differentiation between the task of quantitatively accounting for GHG inventories and the task of reporting results from calculated inventories in response to stakeholder or policy expectations. We use this approach to investigate European GHG reporting schemes and related GHG accounting methodologies in detail. Our findings indicate that the current phase of the European Green Deal depicts a quantitative growth in reporting schemes and a significant qualitative change by shifting from formerly voluntary to mandatory reporting schemes, along with the application of accounting methodologies originally not intended for politically compulsory purposes. We analyze the consequences of this shift, which poses new challenges for companies and policymakers, i.e., data-management concepts and refined methodological frameworks.

Uncontrolled Keywords: carbon accounting, European Green Deal, industrial ecology, net-zero, reporting scheme, sustainable policy
Identification Number: Artikel-ID: 3693
Classification DDC: 300 Social sciences > 320 Political science
300 Social sciences > 333.7 Natural resources, energy and environment
600 Technology, medicine, applied sciences > 624 Civil engineering and environmental protection engineering
Divisions: 13 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Sciences
13 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Sciences > Institute IWAR
13 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Sciences > Institute IWAR > Material Flow Management and Resource Economy
02 Department of History and Social Science
02 Department of History and Social Science > Institute of Political Science
02 Department of History and Social Science > Institute of Political Science > International Relations
Date Deposited: 14 May 2024 06:47
Last Modified: 14 May 2024 06:47
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