Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the tensions and contradictions between different conceptions of the meaning of carbon accounting. Design/methodology/approach-The paper draws on theories of framing to help explain the divergent understandings and practices currently encompassed by the term 'carbon accounting'. The empirical core of the paper is based on a review of the literature and illustrated through examples of some of the contemporary problems in carbon accounting. Findings-Tensions and contradictions in carbon accounting can be understood as the result of 'collisions' between at least five overlapping frames of reference, namely physical, political, market-enabling, financial and social/environmental modes of carbon accounting. Practical implications-Unresolved tensions in carbon accounting can undermine confidence in climate science, policies, markets and reporting, thereby ultimately discouraging action to mitigate climate change. Understanding this problem can contribute to finding practical solutions. Originality/value-The paper makes three distinct contributions to the emerging theoretical literature on carbon accounting. First, it provides a unique 'unpacked' definition of carbon accounting that attempts to represent the contemporary range of meanings encompassed by the term. Second, we demonstrate how social science ideas about framing can help explain why definitions and understandings of carbon accounting vary. Third, by making the interactions between different forms of carbon accounting explicit through the metaphor of colliding frames of reference, the origins of some of the contemporary intractable issues in carbon accounting can be better understood.

In this paper we assess how the production and consumption of voluntary carbon offsets are inextricably linked through the practices of offset organisations. (1) The growth of the voluntary carbon offset sector has been remarkable over the past three years as a range of actors seek to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by paying for carbon reductions elsewhere. While academic attention is starting to be directed towards the conditions through which this new commodity is being produced (Backstrand and Lovbrand, 2006;Bumpus and Liverman, 2008), less attention has been focused on the processes through which it has been made possible to consume carbon offsets. The voluntary carbon market allows companies, public bodies, and individuals the opportunity to purchase credits generated from projects that either prevent or reduce greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere, or that capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 2007). The voluntary market has grown rapidly in recent years: in 2007 a record 65 million tonnes of carbon was traded on the voluntary markets, worth US $330 million (Hamilton et al, 2008). The rapid expansion of a novel product designed to mitigate climate changeöa carbon offsetöoffers some challenges to existing scholarship on

Since the turn of the century accounting professional organisations have been involved in a number of debates about climate change, catalysed initially by technical discussions about the treatment of European carbon credits in financial accounts. These bodies are positioning themselves as leading on climate change, for example, through launching professional training courses, funding research, and initiating corporate workshops and seminars. The paper examines the role of the accountancy profession in governing the new carbon economy. We review climate change related activities undertaken by accountancy professional bodies through drawing on primary empirical material, including interviews with accountants, accountancy standard setters and professional bodies. A mix of theories about the role of calculation, measurement and expertise in governance are used to help explain and understand the situation, including ideas about accountancy and society, epistemic communities, and governmentality.

In the UK, climate change and energy have converged on the policy agenda. We discuss the implications for theories of policy change based on well-defined networks located within single, discrete policy domains. We suggest that such approaches struggle to account for the dynamics of change in conditions of policy convergence. The issue of climate change has opened up and destabilised the UK energy policy sector, but this process has been surprisingly free of conflict, despite radical policy shifts. To date, convergence of the energy and climate change sectors has largely occurred at a discursive level, and we focus our attention on a number of different, but largely complementary, storylines about solutions to climate change. We draw on ideas about socio-technical regime transitions to explore first why the storylines are not in obvious conflict, and second to identify small-scale niches where tensions in storylines do emerge as discourse is translated into material reality.

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