As global warming continues to attract growing levels of attention, various stakeholders have put climate change on corporate agendas and expect firms to disclose relevant greenhouse gas information. In this paper, we investigate the consistency of the GHG information voluntarily disclosed by French listed firms through two different communication channels: corporate reports and the Carbon Disclosure Project. More precisely, we contrast the amounts of GHG emissions reported and the methodological explanations provided in each channel. Consistent with a stakeholder theory (...) perspective, we find that GHG amounts are significantly lower in the CR than in the CDP. We also find that firms increase the CR figures’ traceability when there is a discrepancy between disclosures in the two channels. We suggest that the aim of this greater traceability is to enhance information credibility across the different channels used. (shrink)

Prior research suggests that voluntary environmental governance mechanisms operate to enhance a firm’s environmental legitimacy as opposed to being a driver of proactive environmental performance activities. To understand how these mechanisms contribute to the firm’s environmental legitimacy, we investigate whether environmental corporate governance characteristics are associated with voluntary environmental disclosure. We examine an increasingly important attribute of a firm’s disclosure setting, namely the disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) information. GHG information represents proprietary non-financial information about the firm’s exposure to (...) environmental concerns and is related to the firm’s operations and future profitability. Thus, we expect governance participants would view such information as a potentially important strategic device for managing stakeholders’ demands for information concerning environmental risks. We find that the presence of an environmental committee and a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) is positively associated with the likelihood of GHG disclosure and that CSOs are associated with disclosure transparency. Further analysis reveals that the likelihood of disclosure is associated with committee size, number of committee meetings, expertise of committee members and CSO, and overlap between the environmental committee and audit committee. Only expertise of the environmental committee members and the CSO are associated with GHG disclosure transparency, while larger committees tend to be associated with lower transparency. Our results are particularly important to those with interests in evaluating the potential role that corporate governance mechanisms play in responding to stakeholder concerns about environmental risks. Directors and officers who are considering appointment to similar governance positions, may wish to consider what attributes would make such governance positions more influential. (shrink)

The disclosure of corporate environmental performance is an increasingly important element of a firm’s ethical behavior. We analyze how the legal origin of foreign institutional investors affects a firm’s voluntary greenhouse gas emissions disclosure. Using a large sample of firms from 36 countries, we show that foreign institutional ownership from civil law countries improves the scope and quality of a firm’s greenhouse gas emissions reporting. This relation is robust to addressing endogeneity and selection biases. The effect is more (...) pronounced in firms from non-climate-sensitized countries, for which the gap between firms’ environmental standards and investors’ environmental targets is potentially larger, and in less international firms. Firms with a higher level of voluntary greenhouse gas emissions disclosure also exhibit higher valuations. (shrink)

In today's world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies' Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental (...) information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company's litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization's country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today's broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders. (shrink)

As global warming becomes increasingly prominent, countries worldwide advocate for a low-carbon economy to cope with the pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Chinese government has proposed a “dual carbon” goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2060. The disclosure of carbon information by Chinese enterprises has attracted widespread attention from society. This study selects the constituents of the Social Responsibility Index of China Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2020 as samples to (...) empirically analyze the relationship between the level of carbon information disclosure and corporate value, and the moderating effect of greenwashing behavior. Results indicated that the quality of carbon disclosure is positively correlated with the enterprise value. Greenwashing behavior promotes the positive impact of carbon disclosure quality on enterprise value in the short run, but this promoting effect fades in the long run. We further found that the carbon information disclosure of non-heavy-pollution enterprises has a more obvious positive impact on enterprise value than that of heavily polluting enterprises. Additionally, the positive impact of carbon information disclosure on enterprise value is more visible among enterprises in a good legal environment than those in a poor legal environment. This study enriches the relevant literature on carbon information disclosure and enterprise “greenwashing” behavior and has practical significance for promoting China’s low-carbon development in the context of ecological civilization and improving the enthusiasm for the quality of enterprise carbon information disclosure. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over (...) the period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that individual emitters, in contrast to governments, may be justified in employing excusable ignorance as an excuse after 1990 and even well into the future. Although it may at first seem counterintuitive, this is not only true of individuals with extremely limited access to information but potentially also of highly educated individuals with almost boundless access to data, reports, and analyses. I develop the argument based on an influential account of excusable ignorance and discuss (...) and reject an objection from expert testimony. (shrink)

National greenhouse-gas accounting should reflect how countries’ policies and behaviours affect global emissions. Actions that contribute to reduced global emissions should be credited, and actions that increase them should be penalized. This is essential if accounting is to serve as accurate guidance for climate policy. Yet this principle is not satisfied by the two most common accounting methods. Production-based accounting used under the Kyoto Protocol does not account for carbon leakage — the phenomenon of countries reducing their domestic emissions (...) by shifting carbon-intensive production abroad1. Consumption-based accounting2,3 does not credit countries for cleaning up their export industries, and it also punishes some types of trade that could contribute to more carbon efficient production worldwide. We propose an improvement to consumption-based carbon accounting that takes technology differences in export sectors into account and thereby tends to more correctly reflect how national policy changes affect total global emissions. We also present empirical results showing how this new measure redraws the global emissions map. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide further clarity to the technical and policy difficulties associated with mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by identifying and distilling the core tensions which propagate and animate them. We argue that these complexities exist across four critical dimensions: the epistemological, the ethical, the political, and the practical. Adequately confronting the challenge of agricultural emissions will require improved transparency in emissions measurement, increased science communication, enhanced public participatory mechanisms, and the integration of (...) ethical deliberation in scientific and policy discussions. (shrink)

Opposition against greenhouse gas emissions reductions is strong among some conservative Christian groups, especially in the United States. In this paper, we identify five scripture-based arguments against greenhouse gas mitigation put forward by a core group of Christian conservatives ('the Cornwallists'): the anti-paganism argument, the enrichment argument, the omnipotence argument, the lack of moral relevance argument and the cost-benefit argument. We evaluate to what extent the arguments express positions that can be characterised as climate science denialist and to (...) what degree they are consistent with support for climate adaptation. Using Stefan Rahmstorf's (2004) taxonomy of climate science denial, we conclude that the Cornwallists could be labelled climate change deniers. However, their opposition is not only based on denial of climate science but often rests on premises that render the science irrelevant, a position we term 'relevance denialism'. (shrink)

As a collective action problem, climate change is best tackled by coordination. Most moral philosophers therefore agree on our individual responsibility as political citizens to help establish such coordination. There is disagreement, however, on our individual responsibilities as consumers to reduce emissions before such coordination is established. In this article I argue that from a Kantian deontological perspective we have a perfect duty to refrain from activities that we would not perform if appropriate coordination were established. Moral autonomy means that (...) we do not need to wait for an external lawmaker to tell us what we ought to do. In practice, this means basing our decisions on a shadow price for carbon: if we would not go out for a drive on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle if gas prices were twice as high, we should not do it now. Moreover, we have imperfect duties to reduce emissions by more than our perfect duties require. (shrink)

Many environmental philosophers have argued that there is an obligation for individuals to reduce their individual carbon footprints. However, few of them have addressed whether this obligation would entail a corresponding duty to limit one’s family size. In this paper, I examine several reasons that one might view procreative acts as an exception to a more general duty to reduce one’s individual greenhouse gas emissions. I conclude that none of these reasons are convincing. Thus, if there is an obligation (...) to reduce one’s unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, then people should also limit the size of their families when they have the means to do so. (shrink)

Environmental ethicists have not reached a consensus about whether or not individuals who contribute to climate change have a moral obligation to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, I side with those who think that such individuals do have such an obligation by appealing to the concept of integrity. I argue that adopting a political commitment to work toward a collective solution to climate change—a commitment we all ought to share—requires also adopting a personal commitment to (...) reduce one’s emissions. On these grounds, individuals who contribute to climate change have a prima facie moral duty to lower their personal greenhouse gas emissions. After presenting this argument and supporting each of its premises, I defend it from two major lines of objection: skepticism about integrity’s status as a virtue and concerns that the resulting moral duty would be too demanding to be morally required. I then consider the role that an appeal to integrity could play in galvanizing the American public to take personal and political action regarding climate change. (shrink)

Christian Baatz argues that individuals have an imperfect duty to take reasonable steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and that governments should be working to implement st...

To achieve the very specific goal of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, many technical challenges and conflicts of interest must be overcome. How can a strategy be developed that is politically and socially acceptable? Research is needed to support societal efforts to rethink the links between energy use and human well-being.

Marquis’s account of the ethics of abortion is unsatisfactory but not as Christensen implies baseless. It requires to be amended rather than abandoned. It is true, as Marquis asserts that murder and abortion both might deprive people of something of value to them, in particular, the life of a sort that might have been to them worth living. However, it is mistaken to conclude, as Marquis does, that murder and abortion are thereby morally equivalent. Not all deprivation is wrongful. Not (...) all that is wrongful is wrongful because it deprives someone of something. Contrary to what Christensen asserts, and Marquis seems to accept, it is not solely those discernible people who currently exist who might be deprived by our current actions. It is not only towards and concerning such living discernible people that we can have moral duties. It is not only such living discernible people who can be the beneficiaries of our generosity. Hence, contraception and the emission of greenhouse gases are, like abortion, issues that raise significant moral questions; however, they might each be properly answered. Nonetheless, it does not follow that is morally equivalent to each other far less than they are all morally equivalent to murder. If and when they are morally wrong, they can be different wrongs. (shrink)

The prospect of dangerous climate change requires Humanity to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. This in turn raises the question of how the permission to emit greenhouse gases should be distributed and among whom. In this article the author criticises three principles of distributive justice that have often been advanced in this context. He also argues that the predominantly statist way in which the question is framed occludes some morally relevant considerations. The latter part of the article (...) turns from critique and advances a new way of addressing the problem. In particular, first, it proposes four key theses that should guide our normative analysis; and, second, it outlines how these four theses can be realised in practice. (shrink)

This paper explores factors shaping perceptions of Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) amongst a range of informed stakeholders, with a particular focus on their role in future social and political systems. We find considerable ambivalence regarding the role of climate targets and incumbent interests in relation to GGR. Our results suggest that GGR is symbolic of a fundamental debate - occurring not only between separate people, but sometimes within the minds of individuals themselves - over whether technological solutions represent a (...) pragmatic or an unethical strategy. We present the idea of a 'Monsanto effect', whereby an entirely separate debate taps into deeper narratives and becomes so pervasive that it spills over into a new topic area. Our findings have significant implications for extant and emergent climate policy as they suggest that, in addition to the considerable practical challenges facing large-scale GGR deployment, there is a deeper psychological challenge in that actors are themselves conflicted about the fundamental desirability of GGR. (shrink)

Mainstream thought on environmental justice emphasizes disparities between populations in terms of their exposure to environmental risks. Climate change has recently shifted attention from vulnerability to responsibility, with much of the research and dissemination of results accentuating differential contributions on the part of various groups to CO2 emissions and their accumulation in the atmosphere. But efforts to monitor, mitigate and adapt to climate change are largely premised on sovereign states as the main units of analysis, and on comparisons between them (...) as the primary tool for designing policy. This approach, which reifies climate change as a technical, distant and detached issue, arrests the long overdue politicization of the atmosphere. This Article, which uses data from Israel on differentiated levels of CO2 emissions by income decile, suggests that hitherto overlooked in-country disparities in CO2 emissions are an integral part of the problem and of potential ways to tackle it. Offering a critique of attempts to use distributive justice as a basis for a global climate pact, it calls for further in-country analysis of emissions and a better understanding of how the outcomes of those attempts might become relevant to more people globally. Such insights, it argues, are essential for climate policies to become politicized and thus gain prominence and urgency in political debates, campaigns, and eventually on the executive agenda of all levels of government. (shrink)

It has sometimes been claimed (usually without evidence) that the harm caused by an individual's participation in a greenhouse-gas-intensive economy is negligible. Using data from several contemporary sources, this paper attempts to estimate the harm done by an average American. This estimate is crude, and further refinements are surely needed. But the upshot is that the average American is responsible, through his/her greenhouse gas emissions, for the suffering and/or deaths of one or two future people.

The increasing prevalence of ecologically sustainable products in consumer markets, such as organic produce, are generally assumed to curtail anthropogenic impacts on the environment. Here I intend to present an alternative perspective on sustainable production by interpreting the relationship between recent rises in organic agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production. I construct two time series fixed-effects panel regressions to estimate how increases in organic farmland impact greenhouse gas emissions derived from agricultural production. My analysis finds that (...) the rise of certified organic production in the United States is not correlated with declines in greenhouse gas emissions derived specifically from agricultural production, and on the contrary is associated positively overall agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. To make sense of this finding, I embed my research within the conventionalization thesis. As a result I argue that the recent USDA certification of organic farming has generated a bifurcated organic market, where one form of organic farming works as a sustainable counterforce to conventional agriculture and the other works to increase the economic accessibility of organic farming through weakening practice standards most conducive to reducing agricultural greenhouse gas output. Additionally, I construct my own theoretical framework known as the displacement paradox to further interpret my findings. (shrink)

John Nolt offers a helpful, albeit rough quantitative analysis of the harmfulness of the average American's greenhouse gas emissions. By examining the lifetime contributions of the average American...

In ‘How harmful are the average American's greenhouse gas emissions?’ John Nolt correctly points out that the claim that an individual's contribution to total atmospheric greenhouse gas leve...

Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases are significant contributors to climate change, which poses a grave threat to social and economic systems. Our understanding of what might drive firms to reduce their emissions of these gases, however, is incomplete, and it is not clear that the knowledge gained from other environmental issues will readily apply to these emissions. We argue and find that indicators of environmental injustice previously shown to relate to toxic pollutants, for example, are poor predictors of (...) class='Hi'>greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, we show that the degree of belief in and concern about climate change in a local community is a significant predictor of the facility’s rate of emission improvements. Furthermore, we find that beliefs at both the facility and headquarter communities influence emission reduction, and that those effects are substitutes for each other. (shrink)

I am grateful to all the respondents to ‘How harmful are the average American's greenhouse gas emissions?’. Their comments were individually and collectively very rich. Since there is...

ObjectivePhysical and mental well-being are threatened by climate change. Since hospitals in high-income countries contribute significantly to climate change through their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the medical ethics imperative of ‘do no harm’ imposes a responsibility on hospitals to decarbonise. We investigated hospital stakeholders’ perceptions of hospitals’ GHG emissions sources and the sense of responsibility for reducing GHG emissions in a hospital.MethodsWe conducted 29 semistructured qualitative expert interviews at one of Germany’s largest hospitals, Heidelberg University Hospital. Five patients, 12 (...) clinical and 12 administrative employees on different levels were selected using purposive maximum variation sampling. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using the framework approach.ResultsConcerning GHG emissions, hospital stakeholders perceived energy and waste as most relevant emission sources followed by mobility. Climate change mitigation in general was considered as important. However, in their role as patients or employees, hospital stakeholders felt less responsible for climate change mitigation. They saw providing best possible medical care to be the top priority in hospitals and were often concerned that patients’ health could be jeopardised by climate change mitigation measures.ConclusionPerceptions of most important emission sources did not coincide with those in literature, highlighting the need to inform stakeholders, for instance, about pharmaceuticals as important emission source. A frequently perceived conflict between reducing emissions and providing high-quality medical care could be eased, if reducing emissions would not only be justified as a contribution to mitigation, but also as a contribution to preventing ill health—a basic principle of medical ethics. (shrink)

Humans ought to do much more in order to remedy the severe harm caused by climate change. While there seems to be an overall consensus that governments and other national and international political agents need to resolve the problem, there is no agreement yet on the role and responsibility of individuals in this process. In this paper, I suggest an argument of integrity that offers strong pro tanto moral reasons for individuals to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions. Hourdequin (...) (2010) has presented an argument of integrity to justify a corresponding obligation. In this paper, I argue that even though Hourdequin’s argument is appealing, it has important limitations. I advance the argument in light of the current literature so that it is not subject to these limitations and establishes an overall more comprehensive justification for why individuals ought to reduce their personal emissions. (shrink)

A recent study by McGee from the University of Oregon has led to discussions in international media and on the web. This study addresses an interesting question and applies advanced statistics for its analysis. However, we identify several methodological flaws that invalidate the results. First, McGee tests a hypothesis that does not correspond to his main question and which does not allow McGee to derive the conclusions that are drawn in his paper and reported in the media coverage. Second, the (...) data used are not adequate for the analysis because: i) the dependent variable does not reflect the greenhouse gas emissions characteristics of organic agriculture, ii) the explanatory variables neglect the livestock sector, and iii) trade aspects are missing. Third, McGee fails to discuss his findings in the light of quite a substantial body of experimental, bio-physical research from the US and elsewhere. (shrink)

Scientists are typically responsible for greater greenhouse gas emissions than the general population. These ‘extra’ emissions are largely due to frequent travel, often by airplane, to professional and academic meetings. In the following commentary, we explore how employing mixed modes of transportation, particularly by prioritizing train travel, can significantly reduce the environmental costs associated with attending conferences. Estimating travel distances for attendants to recent meetings, we demonstrate that the proposed strategy has the potential to decrease emissions, even when considering (...) exotic, remote (and potentially enticing) locations. Our suggestions are easy to implement, can be combined with previous proposals for reducing emissions, and provide an opportunity for scientists to convey an important message to the general public. This message is not confined to our particular example and we hope that it will encourage ecologists, sociologists and other scientists, historians and philosophers to pursue additional creative behavioural solutions in order to reduce our impact on an increasingly stressed ecosphere. (shrink)

Human rights law has been called upon to help with the problem of persistently high greenhouse gas emissions. An obligation on states and other legal entities to lower their emissions (mitigation) is said to be deducible from that body of law. I refute this thesis. First, I consider two practical difficulties—causality and non-triviality—that face a plaintiff who, with emission mitigation as the objective, attempts to prove a human rights violation using the regular pattern of proof for a violation. Proponents (...) of the “human rights approach” to mitigation have held that proof of an emission “contribution” by the defendant together with proof of an “impact” by climate change on the plaintiff’s human rights are sufficient to discharge the evidentiary burden for the proof of causation. The rest of the causation chain is simply presumed. Thus, the original proof pattern for a human rights violation is abandoned. The proponents’ answer to the triviality difficulty has been to aggregate emitters into very large entities and sue _them_. However, aggregation can be shown to lead to a _reductio ad absurdum_. In my argument’s second part, I identify a more fundamental difficulty with the human rights approach to mitigation: The defendant’s emissions do not amount to a norm violation. Everyone contributes emissions without legislative or other prohibition. Treaty law on climate change itself recognizes emitting behaviour as lawful and permits the continuation of state emissions through to at least 2050. A rise in global warming from preindustrial levels to 1.5° Celsius with room for an even greater rise to close to 2° Celsius has been _budgeted for_ by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The setting up of a budget affirms the normalized status of within-budget emissions. This universal license to emit denies the human rights approach to mitigation the very conditions of application of human rights law. (shrink)

In Strategic Bargaining and Cooperation in Greenhouse Gas Mitigations, Zili Yang connects these two important approaches by incorporating various game theoretic solution concepts into a well-known integrated assessment model of climate ...

In this Article we attempt to narrow the gap between developed and developing countries’ respective perceptions of justice in the context of climate change. We show that, in spite of its intuitive appeal, the equal per-capita argument is not grounded in any general moral principle and therefore cannot provide an answer to the question regarding what would be a fair allocation of emission rights. We argue that the underlying moral theory is global distributive justice theory, which unfortunately can only be (...) of very limited help. We briefly discuss the various particular principles/considerations that are offered in the literature either in support or in criticism of the equal percapita allocation and find that upon close analysis they generally support the developing countries’ view, but not a per-capita allocation of emission rights. We conclude with a practical suggestion. (shrink)

Projections regarding future energy consumption and carbon emissions are crucial when the aim is to design policy for global emissions control. What is the different models’ take on the projections for global emissions and, in particular, China’s role in the global picture? Do they anticipate similar results? If not, why are the results different? What key parameters do they use, and how do they affect the final findings? This Article attempts to answer these questions and, starting from there, to further (...) analyze what it means for the challenge of China’s future emissions reduction potential and for the overall goal of global emissions reduction. (shrink)

Argues for the justice of a land based allocation of rights to emit carbon dioxide on the basis of the fact that this would involve recognizing duties to land and would in fact be more fair and workable than proposals based on per-capita allocations.

In this comment I respond to the criticisms put forth by Muller et al. It is my assessment that the authors’ make useful suggestions for future analyses. However, their conclusion regarding the invalidity of my results are based on a misconception of the goals and data used in my article.

We study 944 shareholder proposals submitted to 343 U.S. firms on climate change issues during 2009–2022. We use logistic and two-stage regression to estimate the propensity for a firm to be targeted or subjected to a vote at the annual general meeting and, for voted proposals, the determinants of that vote. We also examine whether climate-related proposals affect investor returns and how they relate to firms’ future environmental performance and greenhouse gas emissions. Compared to a matched sample, we first (...) find that activists target larger, more carbon-intensive, and less R&D-active firms. Second, voting likelihood is higher for firms with repeated and operations-related proposals and lower pre-proposal environmental ratings. By contrast, disclosure-related proposals are likelier to be negotiated and withdrawn. Third, repeated and operations-related proposals receive higher votes in favor, whereas votes on carbon-intensive firms do not. Fourth, building on the theory that investors act as if they distinguish among the different shareholder proposals based on the expected cost to the firm, we find evidence to support this idea. We find that investors respond negatively to ex-ante costlier proposals, such as those that relate to emissions reduction and target carbon-intensive firms. Fifth, targets’ future environmental performance rating is almost twenty percent higher after a proposal than before compared to the matched sample, whereas emissions do not budge appreciably. (shrink)

To fight climate change, firms must adopt effective and feasible carbon management practices that promote collaboration within supply chains. Engaging suppliers and customers on carbon management reduces vulnerability to climate-related risks and increases resilience and adaptability in supply chains. Therefore, it is important to understand the motives and preconditions for pursuing supply chain engagement from companies that actively engage with supply chain members in carbon management. In this study, a relational view is applied to operationalize the supply chain engagement concept (...) to reflect the different levels of supplier and customer engagement. Based on a sample of 345 companies from the Carbon Disclosure Project’s supply chain program, the determinants of engagement were hypothesized and tested using multinomial and ordinal logistic estimation methods. The results indicate that companies that integrate climate change into their strategies and are involved in developing environmental public policy are driven by moral motives to engage their suppliers and customers in carbon management. All these factors make a stronger impact on supplier engagement than on customer engagement. Moreover, companies operating in greenhouse gas-intensive industries are driven by instrumental motives to engage their suppliers and customers because increasing greenhouse gas intensity positively influences engagement level. Company profitability appears to increase supplier engagement, but not customer engagement. Interestingly, operating in a country with stringent environmental regulations does not appear to influence supply chain engagement. By utilizing relational capabilities and collaboration, buyers can increase their suppliers’ engagement to disclose emissions, which ultimately will lead to better results in carbon management. (shrink)

This paper explores the level of corporate social responsibility contributions disclosed by central public sector enterprises in India. This paper analyses the nature and quality of CSR disclosures made by CPSEs listed in India following the issue of CSR guidelines by the Department of Public Enterprises for CPSEs in March 2010. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of CSR guidelines on the reporting practices of the CPSEs. A content analysis of annual reports across seven themes (...) shows that Human Resources and Community Development are the prime focus areas of CSR disclosures, whereas Carbon and Greenhouse Gas emissions are the least reported activity. The disclosures across all CSR themes are primarily narrative rather than quantitative or in monetary terms. The findings of the study may help policy makers in India to assess practices and devise detailed and specific CSRD requirements, rather than the current general mandatory requirements, to enhance the performance and quality of CSRDs by the CPSEs. (shrink)

In this book some options concerning the greenhouse effect are assessed from a welfarist point of view: business as usual, stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction by 25% and by 60%. Up to today only economic analyses of such options are available, which monetize welfare losses. Because this is found to be wanting from a moral point of view, the present study welfarizes (among others) monetary losses on the basis of a hedonistic utilitarianism and other, justice incorporating, (...) welfare ethics. For these welfarist evaluations information about the social consequences of the four options are collected from the literature and eventually corrected; then the consequences for individual well-being are assessed based on psychological research about well-being dependent on the social situation of the individual; finally the aggregation formulas of the respective welfare ethics are applied to these data. Assessments by other types of ethics, e.g. Kantian ethic, are included. The strongest abatement option is found to be optimum with great unanimity. - In addition a cost-welfare analysis of greenhouse gas abatement is undertaken revealing efficient cost-welfare ratios for these measures and the most efficient ratio for the strongest option. - A final, more theoretical part discusses the moral obligations following from such evaluations. The notion of 'moral obligation' is explained in a way that, apart from moral goodness of the required act, reinforcement by formal or informal sanctions is another necessary condition for moral obligations. This leads to a conception of a historical morality according to which the demands of morality rise in the long run. Applying this conception to the greenhouse effect implies that presently we have the moral duty to raise the standards of greenhouse gas abatement as much as is politically feasible. (shrink)

The choice of greenhouse gas emissions accounting method is important because it affects the way climate burdens are allocated between states. This paper investigates the significance of state jurisdiction for this choice. It assesses three arguments from jurisdiction against consumption-based emissions accounting: the fairness argument from retrospective responsibility; the fairness argument from prospective responsibility; and the effectiveness argument. It argues that former two arguments fail since attributing emissions to importing states neither unfairly blames these states nor asks too much (...) of them. However, the effectiveness argument provides a strong potential reason against consumption-based emissions accounting. To the extent jurisdictional control is needed to reduce some emissions, and production-based accounting incentivizes states to reduce these emissions, there is a reason of environmental effectiveness for sticking with production-based accounting. (shrink)

One of the core debates concerning equity in the response to the threat of anthropogenic climate change is how the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be allocated, or, correspondingly, how the right to emit greenhouse gases should be allocated. Two alternative approaches that have been widely promoted are, first, to assign obligations to the industrialized countries on the basis of both their ability to pay and their responsibility for the majority of prior emissions, or, second, to (...) assign emissions rights on a equal per capita basis. Both these proposals ignore intra-national distributional equity. Instead, we develop a policy framework we call 'Greenhouse Development Rights' which allocates obligations to pay for climate policies on the basis of an individually quantified metric of capacity and responsibility . Crucially, the GDRs framework looks at the distribution of income within countries and treats people of equal wealth similarly, whatever country they live in. Thus even poor countries have obligations proportional to the size and wealth of their middle and upper classes, defined relative to a 'development threshold'. While this method nominally identifies the 'right to development' as applying to people, not countries, as a proposal for a treaty among sovereign nations, there is no obvious way to give legal meaning to that right. In this paper, then, we raise some of the philosophical and political questions that arise in trying to quantify capacity and responsibility and to use the 'right to development' as a principle for allocating costs.*. (shrink)

One of the core debates concerning equity in the response to the threat of anthropogenic climate change is how the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be allocated, or, correspondingly, how the right to emit greenhouse gases should be allocated. Two alternative approaches that have been widely promoted are, first, to assign obligations to the industrialized countries on the basis of both their ability to pay (wealth) and their responsibility for the majority of prior emissions, or, second, (...) to assign emissions rights on a (possibly modified) equal per capita basis. Both these proposals ignore intra-national distributional equity. Instead, we develop a policy framework we call ‘Greenhouse Development Rights’ (GDRs) which allocates obligations to pay for climate policies (both mitigation and adaptation) on the basis of an individually quantified metric of capacity (ability to pay) and responsibility (prior emissions). Crucially, the GDRs framework looks at the distribution of income within countries and treats people of equal wealth similarly, whatever country they live in. Thus even poor countries have obligations proportional to the size and wealth of their middle and upper classes, defined relative to a ‘development threshold’. While this method nominally identifies the ‘right to development’ as applying to people, not countries, as a proposal for a treaty among sovereign nations, there is no obvious way to give legal meaning to that right. In this paper, then, we raise some of the philosophical and political questions that arise in trying to quantify capacity and responsibility and to use the ‘right to development’ as a principle for allocating costs.Footnote**The ‘Greenhouse Development Rights’ (GDRs) framework is a collective project. The core team includes the author, Tom Athanasiou, Sivan Kartha and Eric Kemp-Benedict; this is the ‘we’ that appears where the text refers to the project, as in ‘we intended this’, and so on. This paper, however, is primarily the author's own product and, beyond the description of GDRs, my collaborators have not read or approved it; thus much of the writing and philosophical speculation uses the first person singular. And, while credit for useful work goes to all team members, the blame for philosophical sloppiness remains with the author. (shrink)

Many governments and corporations have embraced information disclosure as an alternative to conventional environmental and public health regulation. Public policy research on transparency has examined the effects of particular disclosure policies, but there is limited research on how the construction of disclosure policies relates to social movements, or how transparency and ignorance are related. As a first step toward filling this theoretical gap, this study seeks to conceptualize disclosure conflicts, the social processes through which secrecy is challenged, defended, and mobilized (...) in public technoscientific controversies. In the case of shale oil and gas development in the United States, activists and policy makers have demanded information about the contents of fluids used in the extraction process and the routes of oil shipments by rail. Drilling and railroad companies have resisted both demands. Studies of such disputes reveal the dynamic and conflictual nature of information disclosure. In both cases, disclosure conflicts unfold dynamically over time, reflecting power disparities between industry groups and their challengers and requiring coalitions of activists to pursue multiple tactics. When a disclosure policy is established, it does not resolve social conflict but shifts the focus of struggle to the design of information systems, the quality of disclosed data, and the knowledge gaps that are now illuminated. (shrink)

Evidence provided by the scientific community strongly suggests that limits should be placed on greenhouse gas emissions. This means that states, firms, and individuals will have to face potentially serious burdens if they are to implement these limits. Which principles of justice should guide a global regime aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions originating from human activities, and most notably from CO2emissions? This is both a crucial and difficult question. Admittedly, perhaps this question is too ambitious, given the (...) uncertainties and complexities characterizing the issue of climate change. Yet, rather than listing them all at this stage, let us address the question in a straightforward manner, introducing some of these complexities as the need arises. (shrink)

The approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions suggested by simple neoclassical economic models has appeared in prominent mainstream journals. This entails weighing up the costs of control compared to the benefits of avoiding damages due to global climate change. This paper presents a critique of extending the microeconomic project based methodology to a complex global problem; raising issues of uncertainty and ignorance. An alternative to simple utilitarianism is seen to be necessary and the potential of a deontological approach is (...) argued to be greater with regard to policy decisions concerning future generations. (shrink)