Organizations, Climate Change, and Transparency

Abstract

The debate surrounding climate change often centers on companies' contributions to global warming, which has led to an increase in the importance of carbon disclosure. We evaluate the current state of related research and identify its trends, coherences, and caveats via a systematic literature review. Sociopolitical theories of disclosure, economic theories of disclosure, and institutional theory serve as the main theoretical anchors for our exploration. The existing research emphasizes the determinants and, to a lesser extent, effects of carbon disclosure, as well as the associated regulatory issues such as voluntary versus mandatory disclosure. Additionally, we discuss related topics, such as assurance and risks. We find that a large portion of scholarly work provides no link to theory, despite the fact that such links can be identified, for example, from the financial disclosure literature. Finally, we report on the established knowledge and examine the need for additional research.

The Influence of the Sustainability Logic on Carbon Disclosure in the Global Logistics Industry: The Case of DHL, FDX and UPS

“…In response to these stakeholder pressures, the disclosure of carbon-related information about the company's activities in the form of carbon reports has increased markedly over the last several years [2,4].…”

“…Legitimacy is "a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions" [15] (p. 274). Legitimacy can also be regarded as the underlying rationale, or the dominant motivation, for carbon reporting [1,4,13].…”

“…Compared with that of UPS, 'this approach may lead to less complete reporting', because when an operational control is applied, the carbon measurement and reporting are "not limited to majority-held ventures, [but] also [apply] to minority ventures" [68] (pp. [3][4][5]. Thus, an operational approach can be regarded as a more complete and transparent approach, as it tries to capture emissions from the entire operational network.…”

“…Global logistics companies respond to these pressures by disclosing information in the form of carbon reports. However, carbon disclosure is still mainly a voluntary organisational practice, and global logistics companies can choose which tools or guidelines to apply in order to measure environmental and carbon performance [4]. This voluntary approach allows for a broad range of interpretation of carbon-related information, and leads to significant differences in carbon measurement and reporting, although the operations within global logistics companies can be regarded as broadly similar.…”

“…Research on carbon disclosure and carbon management from the perspective of logistics companies is still limited [1,4,[7][8][9][10][11]. The majority of existing studies address carbon issues either only partly, or do not focus specifically on logistics companies, pointing to a need to examine carbon-disclosure practices within the logistics and transportation sector.…”