Carbon management strategy and carbon disclosures: An exploratory study

• Author: Mahfuja Malik,Kanwalroop Kathy Dhanda
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12207

Bus Soc Rev. 2020;125:225–239.

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225

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/basr

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INTRODUCTION

We are witnessing climate change on a global scale. The evidence is documented from increasing

temperatures being recorded worldwide and the dramatic rise in sea levels to the melting of Artic Ice

Received: 22 May 2020

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Accepted: 23 May 2020

DOI: 10.1111/basr.12207

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Carbon management strategy and carbon

disclosures: An exploratory study

Kanwalroop KathyDhanda1

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MahfujaMalik2

© 2020 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden,

MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

1Department of Management, Welch

College of Business & Technology, Sacred

Heart University, Fairfield, CT, USA

2Department of Accounting & Information

System, Welch College of Business &

Technology, Sacred Heart University,

Fairfield, CT, USA

Correspondence

Kanwalroop Kathy Dhanda, Department of

Management, Welch College of Business

& Technology, Sacred Heart University,

Fairfield, CT 06825, USA.

Email: dhandak@sacredheart.edu

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept aimed to

ensure that corporations conduct their business in an ethi-

cal manner by taking care of their environment and human

resources in addition to their economic impact. Often times,

CSR refers to the steps undertaken by a corporation to

measure its efforts to improve the environment and social

well-being. One of the aspects of CSR pertains to the disclo-

sure of emission information and carbon management strat-

egy (CMS). Carbon Management refers to analyzing and

focusing on those areas within the corporation where cost

reductions can be made via energy reductions, waste man-

agement, and reduced resource consumption. In this article,

we examine the role of an effective CMS on the emission

disclosure behavior of firms. We utilize the carbon disclo-

sure project surveys to find that firms adopting an effective

CMS are more likely to disclose the information about both

direct and indirect emissions.

KEYWORDS

carbon disclosures, carbon management strategy, corporate social

responsibility, direct emissions