Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Carbon accounting: a systematic literature review
Kristin Stechemesser, Edeltraud Guenther*
Technische Universitaet Dresden, Faculty of Economics, Chair of Environmental Management and Accounting, Muenchner Platz 1/3, 01062 Dresden, Germany
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 27 February 2011
Received in revised form
3 February 2012
Accepted 16 February 2012
Available online 13 March 2012
The term carbon accounting is widely used by scientists in various disciplines and is found particularly
often in discussions of the integration of aspects of climate into accounting. However, no consistent
definition of carbon accounting exists. Thus, the objective of this paper is to derive a definition of carbon
accounting by means of a systematic literature review that includes different perspectives and research
streams. Based on this review and the use of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, the
129 identified and investigated literature sources were divided into four sections: carbon accounting at
the national scale, at the project scale, at the organizational scale and at the product scale. Additionally,
at each scale, we differentiated between non-monetary and monetary aspects and explained the purpose
of the study. Based on these findings, a definition of carbon accounting is proposed that can be used by
academics to operationalize their research questions, by legislators to delimit obligatory and voluntary
accounting and by practitioners to establish carbon accounting in companies.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Carbon accounting
Systematic literature review
Financial accounting
Management accounting
1. Introduction
The consideration of greenhouse gases (GHG) in entrepreneurial
decisions is attracting growing attention, largely due to the introduction of emissions trading in the European Union (EU) and recent
work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the
Stern Report, and the Carbon Disclosure Project. Due to emissions
trading, carbon dioxide (CO2) allowances must be entered in annual
financial statements. Therefore, these allowances are also considered in management accounting. Hence, the question arises
whether and how all other climate-relevant aspects are recognized
in management accounting. These aspects include companies’ GHG
emissions, which are not included in emissions trading schemes.
Because we focus on carbon emissions, our research addresses
climate change mitigation and does not include adaptation to
climate change (Directive 2003/87/EC).
Thus far, the GHG Emission Allowance Trading Scheme (ETS) in
the EU includes only CO2 emissions from power generation plants
and energy-intensive facilities (production and processing of
ferrous metals, mineral industry, and other activities of industrial
plants for the production of pulp from timber or other fibrous
materials and from paper and board with a production capacity
exceeding 20 tons per day) (Directive 2003/87/EC). Since the
beginning of 2012, the aviation sector has been integrated into the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 351 463 34313; fax: þ49 351 463 37764.
E-mail address: ema@mailbox.tu-dresden.de (E. Guenther).
0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.02.021
EU ETS (Directive 2008/101/EC). CO2 emissions from other
processes are not included, nor are all other GHGs listed in the
Kyoto Protocol, such as methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O),
hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur
hexafluoride (SF6) (Directive 2003/87/EC). Legislation, customers
and investors may motivate companies to mitigate GHG emissions.
In accountancy companies the discussion on the integration of
aspects of climate change mitigation into accounting is often called
carbon accounting (KPMG, 2008; Hespenheide et al., 2010).
However, both natural scientists and financial analysts use this
term. Do these groups have the same understanding of this term,
and, if not, how do their understandings differ? We examine
whether carbon accounting is an integral part of environmental
accounting in the same way that environmental accounting is an
integral part of accounting.
These questions were the starting point for a literature review
intended to examine the understanding of carbon accounting in
various research areas and to offer a definition that includes
a multitude of research streams. We begin our analysis by introducing the structure of environmental accounting from an
economic perspective. Because carbon accounting is emerging as
a subset of this concept, just as environmental accounting has
emerged as a subset of accounting (Schaltegger and Burritt, 2000),
we stress the importance of one specific environmental topic to
focus attention on environmental issues.
The paper is organized as follows. After an introduction to
environmental accounting, we derive a structure for our systematic
literature review to analyze the different research streams. In
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K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
Section 3, we explain the methodology. We then present and
discuss the results.
2. Environmental accounting from an economic perspective
e the starting point for carbon accounting
monetary
Schaltegger and Burritt (2000) define environmental accounting
as a subset of accounting that addresses “activities, methods and
systems [as well as] recording, analysis and reporting of environmentally induced financial impacts and ecological impacts of
a defined economic system (e.g. firm, plant, region, nation, etc.)” (p.
63). Burritt et al. (2002) also emphasize two sides of environmental
accounting, the non-monetary and monetary aspects. Like
Schaltegger and Burritt (2000), Bennett and James (1998) and the
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) (1995)
note that the term “environmental accounting” is used at
different scales. The USEPA (1995) differentiates between three
types of environmental accounting, depending on their focus and
their audience: national income accounting, financial accounting
and managerial or management accounting. National Income
Accounting, as a macro-economic measure, focuses on the
consumption of a nation’s natural resources, expressed in physical
and/or monetary units. This type of accounting is of interest for
politicians as well as citizens. A distinction between financial and
management accounting is common within organizations
(International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), 2005). Financial
Accounting, which addresses an external audience (e.g., investors,
tax authorities, or creditors), includes data collection, account
balancing, auditing of a firm’s financial statements and external
reporting. The inclusion of environment-related information into
financial data, such as earnings and expenses for environmentrelated investments or environmental liability, can be described
as environmental financial accounting. Financial reporting follows
the regulations of national laws and international standards.
Environmental performance-related information has become part
of voluntary reporting to external stakeholders. A firm’s management accounting identifies, collects and analyzes information on
a division, a facility, a product line, or a system for internal
purposes. According to the IFAC (2005), management accounting is
defined as “the management of environmental and economic
performance, through the development and implementation of
appropriate environment-related accounting systems and practices. While this may include reporting and auditing in some
companies, environmental management accounting typically
involves life cycle costing, full-cost accounting, benefits assessment, and strategic planning for environmental management.” (p.
19). Monetary data encompass the material costs of product and
non-product outputs, waste and emission control costs, prevention
and other environmental management costs, research and development costs, and less tangible costs. In contrast, environmental or
physical data consist of information about material inputs (raw and
auxiliary materials, packaging materials, merchandise, operating
materials, water, and energy) and outputs (product and nonproduct output, such as solid waste, hazardous waste, wastewater
and air emissions) (IFAC, 2005).
In summary, both an internal and an external perspective can
be identified at the organizational scale (Fig. 1). Monetary and
non-monetary information are included in both perspectives.
Hence, the internal perspective encompasses monetary environmental management accounting and physical or non-monetary
environmental management accounting. Both areas can be
considered environmental management accounting. In contrast,
from the external perspective, it is possible to differentiate
monetary environmental regulatory from voluntary accounting
and physical or non-monetary environmental regulatory from
internal
Environmental management accounting
Non-monetary
Monetary
environmental
environmental
management
management
accounting
accounting
Monetary
environmental
regulatory and
voluntary accounting
non-monetary
Non-monetary
environmental
regulatory and
voluntary accounting
external
Fig. 1. Environmental accounting (Sources: Bartolomeo et al., 2000; Burritt et al., 2002).
voluntary accounting. We do not combine these two areas into
financial accounting because this term is typically used in
monetary terms. The differentiation between regulatory and
voluntary accounting originates from a time when external
accounting was initiated by regulatory authorities. Currently,
organizations also account for monetary and physical information
voluntarily to inform their stakeholders.
It is clear that environmental accounting can be realized not
only at an organizational scale but also at the firm, plant, regional
and national scales (Schaltegger and Burritt, 2000). Moreover,
a product line can be the focus of observation (IFAC, 2005).
Therefore, Fig. 1 is also applicable for other scales.
From this economic perspective on environmental accounting,
we now explore the literature on carbon accounting by using
a systematic literature review to answer our research questions:
“How is the term carbon accounting defined?” and “What is the
understanding of carbon accounting?”.
3. Methodology
We could not identify any previous systematic review focusing
on a definition or an understanding of carbon accounting.
According to Littell (2008), a systematic review “aims to comprehensively locate and synthesize research that bears on a particular
question, using organized, transparent, and replicable procedures
at each step in the process.” (p. 1) in order to identify, in our case,
the scientific contributions in the field of carbon accounting
(Tranfield et al., 2003). Thus, our review provides an interdisciplinary and an international overview of the current understanding
of carbon accounting. Fink (2010) proposes four steps for
a systematic review, which we used as a foundation and which we
enriched by using the structure proposed by Tranfield et al. (2003).
In the first step, we selected our research questions, the bibliographic article databases and websites, as well as the appropriate
search terms. Then, we used practical review criteria for the
inclusion or exclusion of the relevant literature. In the third step, we
developed and applied methodological review criteria. Finally, we
synthesized our findings.
3.1. Step 1: Selecting research questions, databases, websites, and
appropriate search terms
Because we could not identify any comprehensive article
on carbon accounting, our research questions for the systematic
review was rather broad: “How is the term carbon accounting
defined?” or “What is the understanding of carbon accounting?” To
search the literature, we chose the search term “carbon *
accounting”, which also comprised, for example, “carbon dioxide
accounting”. Additionally, we used the chemical symbol CO2 (“CO2 *
accounting”). Because CO2 belongs to the family of GHG, we also
decided to use the terms “greenhouse gas * accounting” as well as
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
“GHG * accounting”. Moreover, the issue that we addressed is
climate change; therefore, we also used the term “climat* change *
accounting”, which includes “climate change” as well as “climatic
change”. The databases searched were those provided by major
publishers (Elsevier (www.sciencedirect.com), Emerald (www.
emeraldinsight.com), Springer (www.springerlink.com), and
Wiley (www.wiley.com)) and by library services (Business Source
Complete and Web of Science). Using the search terms mentioned,
we searched the full text of the documents. Following the recommendation of Tranfield et al. (2003) that searches should not be
restricted to bibliographic databases, we also used Google Scholar
to identify unpublished studies, conference proceedings, industry
trials and similar publications. For this additional search, we
limited the search terms to “carbon * accounting” and “climate *
accounting”. In addition, we looked for contributions from
accounting companies or other organizations by analyzing their
websites.
3.2. Step 2: Applying practical screening criteria
We included journal papers, books, research reports, conference
proceedings and practitioner oriented contributions written in
English without a time restriction (Google Scholar includes publications published since 1992). We restricted our search to English
to avoid a language bias or a preference for specific languages as
there is evidence that “language restricted meta-analyses,
compared to language inclusive meta-analyses, did not differ”
(Moher et al., 2000, p. 964).1 We accepted empirical publications as
well as conceptual/theoretical publications, but we excluded
presentations, book reviews, and comments. Thus, quality criteria,
for example journal rankings, were not used for exclusion purposes
because this review aims to give a comprehensive overview of the
understanding of carbon accounting. Finally, we included publications focusing on climate change and the accounting of related
emissions or carbon offsets in non-monetary or monetary terms.
Publications that only mentioned carbon accounting or in which
carbon accounting was of only secondary importance were
excluded. Publications that addressed chemical or microbiological
processes were also excluded. Surprisingly, many papers discussed
the working atmosphere (“climate”) of interpersonal relationships
despite the restrictive search terms. These papers were excluded as
well.
3.3. Step 3: Applying methodological screening criteria
Within the third step, a review protocol (Table 1) for the content
analysis of the publications was determined. The categories for
examining the selected publications were derived from previous
theoretical work (Krippendorff, 2004). The review protocol
encompassed four sections. The first section contained the bibliographic data of each publication such as author(s), year and title of
the publication, authors’ affiliations, authors’ geographic origins,
type of publication, and, if it is a journal, the journal’s name and the
ISI-impact factor in 2010. The ISI-impact factor is an indicator for the
scientific impact represented by citations. The higher the impact of
the journal is on other journal articles, the higher the estimated
quality of the journal. We have decided to use the ISI-impact factor
1
One anonymous reviewer stressed that carbon accounting on the organizational scale is intensely discussed in Germany. A literature search with German
terms yielded 14 relevant publications. An analysis of these publications showed
that the contribution and the message of this paper do not change. To follow the
reviewers’ suggestion, we refer to the German special issue “Grünes Controlling” in
2011. Controlling e Zeitschrift für erfolgsorientierte Unternehmensführung. 23 (8/
9). Upon request, we can provide a list of the 14 German references.
19
because of its applicability to all research areas. Additionally, we
used the Publish or Perish software program to record the citations
of all publications over all years and the average number of citations.
The second section described the background of the publication: its
methodology (for instance theoretical/conceptual, empirical,
practical-solution oriented) and, if applicable, the investigated
country and industry sector. The third section focused on the definition or description of carbon accounting and the alternatively
used terms. We first analyzed the publications for an explicit or
implicit definition of carbon accounting. An explicit definition is
given if the author stated the definition clearly. If the author
described carbon accounting, we graded it as an implicit definition,
for which the implied definition of the term “carbon accounting”
must be close to the description. If the term “carbon accounting”
was not used, we looked for related terms and how these terms
were defined explicitly or implicitly. Moreover, we separately
recorded which GHGs were included. The fourth section addressed
the non-monetary and monetary aspects in a way that is comparable to the non-monetary and monetary alignment of environmental accounting. A short description of the non-monetary or
monetary aspects was required to illustrate how the decision is
reached regarding ‘non-monetary’, ‘monetary’ or both. Additionally,
the purpose of the study and whether it is addressed to an internal
or external audience was assessed based on reading the article.
The review protocol was applied to several publications in a test
phase to ensure that it was applicable to publications not only from
the accounting profession but also from other disciplines. Step 4 of
the systematic review “Synthesizing our findings” is discussed in
the next chapter.
4. Results and discussion
This section is structured according to the review protocol
presented above. After the bibliographic analysis, we explain the
background of the publication. Finally, we focus on explicit and
implicit definitions of carbon accounting or related terms and
describe their focus and content.
4.1. Bibliographic analysis
The search within the databases (not including Google Scholar)
yields 1479 hits. By using the inclusion and exclusion criteria, we
limit the sources to 119 results including 24 double publications,
which are excluded. The search in Google Scholar yields 690 hits;
54 of these are relevant. Of these relevant studies, 20 are also found
within the other databases. In total, 129 publications are included in
the analysis. The oldest source analyzed is published in 1994; the
most recent one is from 2011 (Fig. 2). The majority of the publications are published after 2000. As the trend in Fig. 2 shows, there is
a steadily increasing number of publications with the highest
number of papers being published in 2009 and 2010. Thus, it
appears that the topic is becoming more and more important and of
increasing interest within the research community.
The classification by authors’ affiliation and geographic origin is
based on the first author of the publication. The publications are
primarily compiled by persons from the accounting and management professions (21%) and the environmental science disciplines
(19%), and also by practitioners (19%). The references are classified
under “practitioner” if the first authors’ affiliation is not a university
or a research institution. There are also contributions from
researchers of the natural sciences (16%), technology & engineering
(10%), social sciences (9%) and economics (6%). The authors mainly
come from the USA (30%), Australia (16%) and the UK (15%). One
fifth of all publications originate in Europe (not including the UK);
only a few contributions can be assigned to countries in Africa or
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K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
Table 1
Review protocol.
Bibliographic data
Author(s)
Year
Title
Authors’ affiliation
Authors’ geographic origin
Type of publication
Journal name
ISI-impact (2010) of the journal
Harzings’ Publish or Perish
Who is/are the author(s) of the publication?
In which year was the work published?
What is the title of the publication?
What is the institutional background of the first publisher?
What is the geographic origin of the first publisher?
What kind of publication? (Book, journal, research report,
practitioner-related report)
If it is a journal: what is the journal’s name?
If it is a journal, how was the journal ranked in 2010?
How often the publication is cited and how often the
publication is cited per year?
Hespenheide et al.
2010
Accounting for sustainability performance
Deloitte, Accountancy (practioner)
USA
Practitioner-related report
What is the main contribution? (Theoretical/conceptual,
empirical (survey, case study, etc.), practical-solution oriented)
Which country is subject of the publication?
Which industry sector is subject of the publication?
Practical-solution oriented
Financial Executive
e
/
Background of the publication
Methodology of the publication
Country
Industry sector
Unspecified
Unspecified
Definition of carbon accounting or related terms
Explicit definition of carbon accounting
How is the term “carbon accounting” explicitly defined?
Two different definitions of carbon accounting: 1. Activity
of measuring carbon emissions and removals and
retaining an ongoing inventory of operations-based
emissions; 2. Financial statement impacts resulting from
an entity’s carbon regulatory environment and transacting
strategies (p. 57)
Implicit definition of carbon accounting How is the term “carbon accounting” implicitly defined?
e
Alternatively used terms
What alternative terms are used instead of “carbon accounting”? Related to the first definition of carbon accounting:
carbon counting, carbon footprint, carbon inventory
Explicit definition of alternative term
How is the alternative term explicitly defined?
e
Implicit definition of alternative term
How is the alternative term implicitly defined or described?
e
Kyoto gases (all six greenhouse gases (p. 57))
Focus of climate related gases
Do they focus on GHG, Kyoto gases, or CO2?
Focus and content of the publication
Focus of the publication
Content of the publication
Monetary focus
What is the focus of the publication? (Monetary focus,
non-monetary focus, monetary and non-monetary focus)
What is the subject of the publication? Explain the subject
in brief.
Internal purposes
Does the publication focus on internal or external purposes?
(Internal, external, internal and external)
What does this internal purpose look like?
External purposes
What does this external purpose look like?
Non-monetary focus
Internal purposes
Does the publication focus on internal or external purposes?
(Internal, external, internal and external)
What does this internal purpose look like?
External purposes
What does this external purpose look like?
Asia. Thus, the assumptions that different disciplines address
carbon accounting and that carbon accounting is being researched
by different types of scientists are confirmed. It is surprising that
studies from the US, in particular, address carbon accounting even
though the US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
This literature review includes four different types of publications. The majority of the sources are classified as journals (86%)
and reports (11%). Book chapters or dissertations are only of
secondary importance. Because of the crucial role of journal articles, we analyze them in more detail. Overall, we count 63 different
journals from Accountancy to Wood and Fiber Science (Table 2).
8 journal articles each are published in Energy Policy and
Non-monetary and monetary
Reasons for sustainability key performance indicators
and how to manage sustainability data; regulations
are a driver for carbon accounting and the related
key indicators
Internal and external
Further developments of internal controls and
mechanisms to gather the necessary information
for accurately reporting and disclosing how issues
such as energy, emissions, and access to natural
resources will impact business (p. 54); risk
assessment, management in general (p. 58)
No specification of accounting of emission allowances;
FASB and TASB working on a document which
addresses the topic of GHG emission accounting
(p. 54)
Internal and external
Basic indicators of KPI: energy, GHG emissions; GHG
emissions per product –> required by managers to
understand and control the sustainability performance
of the company (p. 57)
Knowing carbon footprint can be vital to unlocking
government-sponsored tax credits (p. 58)
Environmental Science and Policy; 7 articles are published in
Economic Systems Research; 4 articles are published in the
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. We count 3 articles
each from the following journals: Accounting, Organizations and
Science, Chartered Accountants Journal, Climatic Change, Ecological
Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental
Science and Technology, Global Change Biology, Journal of Applied
Management Accounting Research, and Mitigation and Adaptation
Strategies for Global Change. Again, the broad range of journals
reflects how many different professions address the topic of carbon
accounting, and it becomes clear that there is no journal that solely
focuses on carbon accounting issues.
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
21
national scale e is a suitable approach for conducting a content
analysis of the 129 publications.
4.2. Background of the publication
Fig. 2. Publications per year (aextrapolated trend).
The quality of the journals is an important issue discussed within
the sciences. As mentioned above, the ISI-impact factor is applied to
evaluate this pool of references. Overall, 65 of the journals have no
ISI-impact factor. The highest impact (31.377) recorded is by one
publication from the journal Science. Without the journal Science,
the majority of journals ranked in a range from 1.769 to 2.754, and
the median is 2.446. Within this analysis, the journal with the
highest ranking (6.346) is Global Change Biology, whereas Electric
Power Components and Systems has the lowest ISI-impact factor
(0.577). Overall, the most cited references are Alig et al. (1997),
Lenzen et al. (2004), and Marland et al. (2001). Looking at the
average citation of each article, Kurz et al. (2008), Kurz and Apps
(2006) and Lohmann (2009) are leading the list (Table 3, column 6
and 7).
The bibliographic analysis section is concluded with a citation
analysis across all publications using HistCite software to analyze
the interconnections between the references. HistCite generates
historiographs that show a time-based network diagram of the
publications and their relationship to each other. For a further
understanding of the historiograph, see Table 3 where all of the
records are listed by number. The investigation reveals that in 45
out of 129 publications (35%), the authors cited other publications
from the sample. The most cited reference is Lohmann (2009) (No.
67) with 9 counts, followed by Bebbington and Larrinaga-González
(2008) (No. 53) and Andrew et al. (2009) (No. 73) with 8 and 6
counts, respectively. Inside the graph, shown in Fig. 3, four treelike
constructs can be identified.
In the first construct, the studies involved lead in particular to the
article of Bebbington and Larrinaga-González (2008), which was
cited 8 times. In their paper, they focus on the accounting and
reporting of GHG emissions at the organizational scale. A closer look
into the publications of this cluster leads to the insight that the main
issue of investigation is the organizational scale. In the second
treelike structure, the citation graph leads to Alig et al. (1997) who
concentrate on forest C sequestration programs. Analyzing the
articles belonging to this cluster shows that they mainly focus on
accounting for greenhouse gas offsets from land use change and
forestry (for example, Murray et al., 2004; Galik et al., 2008; Pearson
et al., 2008). The national scale is at the center of the third cluster.
Lenzen et al. (2004), who estimate the GHG emissions of Denmark,
provide the chronological starting point. Moreover, within this
cluster, Andrew et al. (2009) is cited by the following authors: Minx
et al. (2009), Huang et al. (2009), Wood and Dey (2009), Wilting and
Vringer (2009), Wiedmann et al. (2010), and Atkinson et al. (2011).
The fourth treelike structure has no clear focus, unlike the three
preceding clusters. Some of the articles analyze the emissions of
a country, while others investigate projects. The bibliographic
analyses support the conclusion that a deeper investigation based on
the three scales identified e organizational scale, project scale and
In the following section, we explain the methodology of the
publications, whether they are conceptual/theoretical or empirical
or written for practitioners. Papers belonging to the empirical
group include a literature review, a survey, a case study, a group
discussion or an economic model. Approximately 58% of the
publications are empirical articles, 33% are conceptual and the
remaining articles are practical-solution oriented. The cluster
“empirical articles” is dominated by case studies.
Looking at the countries that were analyzed reveals that the
empirical studies examine, in particular, countries from North
America (24%), the EU (16%), and Australia and New Zealand (9%).
However, one in five empirical studies investigates more than one
country. Countries from Asia, South America or Africa are rarely the
subjects of a study. Most of the conceptual papers have no countryspecific focus, but a few discuss problems for one particular country
such as Australia, New Zealand, the USA or Canada. The results from
the practical-solution oriented publications are similar: three out of
eleven restrict their investigation to the EU or the USA or both
because of the focus on the cap and trade system within these
countries.
Additionally, we analyzed whether the articles had an industryspecific focus. In the first step, all publications were divided into
two groups: with or without industry affiliation. More than threequarters had no industry-specific alignment. The remaining articles
examine one or more industry sectors. Classification of the studies
is based on the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in
the European Community. The manufacturing industry is more
frequently the subject of investigation than the other sectors, such
as the agriculture, forestry and fishing, public administration, water
supply, sewerage and waste management sectors. It can be
assumed that the manufacturing industry is of particular interest
due to its higher energy intensity and thus its higher emissions
compared to other industry sectors. Within the manufacturing
industry, the chemical industry is of particular importance as well
as the wood products industry.
4.3. Definition of carbon accounting
To begin the literature search by using the phrase “carbon *
accounting” was useful because of the number of variants of this
term, including for example “carbon emission accounting”, “carbon
offset accounting”, “carbon management accounting”, “carbon flow
accounting”, “corporate-level carbon accounting”, “whole life
carbon accounting”, “full carbon accounting”, or “partial carbon
accounting”. Our analysis shows that the exact term carbon
accounting is defined 11 times across all scales which are discussed
hereafter (see also Table 4).
A broad definition of “carbon accounting” is given by
Hespenheide et al. (2010), who indicate the measuring of emissions
and removals on the one hand and the implications for finances on
the other hand. This definition means that they include nonmonetary as well as monetary aspects from an organizational
perspective, and they also describe the internal and external
application of carbon accounting. Ascui and Lovell (2011) also
present a rather broad definition, which additionally highlights
that carbon accounting can take place for mandatory or voluntary
purposes and at different scales, for example, at a global, a national
or an organizational scale. Kolk et al. (2008) definition refers
particularly to the measurement and trading of carbon emissions.
Ratnatunga (2007b) specifies the measurement for the calculation
22
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
Table 2
Journals and their number of contributions listed by year.
Number of published articles per year
1994 1996 1997 1998 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total
Accountancy
Accounting Forum
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Accounting, Organizations and Society
Accounting Horizon
Antipode
Australian Accounting Review
BioCycle
Business and Politics
Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics
Chartered Accountants Journal
Climatic Change
Ecological Economics
Ecological Modelling
Economic Systems Research
Electric Power Components and Systems
Energy Conversion and Management
Energy Policy
Environment and Development Economics
Environmental and Resource Economics
Environmental Impact Assessment Review
Environmental Management
Environmental Pollution
Environmental Science and Policy
Environmental Science and Technology
EuroMed Journal of Business
European Accounting Review
Financial Executive
Food Policy
Forest Ecology and Management
Global Change Biology
Global Environmental Change
Global Environmental Politics
International Journal of Climate Change Strategies
and Management
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher
Education
Iowa Ag Review
Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change
Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance
Journal of Applied Management Accounting Research
Journal of Dairy Science
Journal of Economic Survey
1
Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy
and Management
Journal of Industrial Ecology
Journal of Material Cycle and Waste Management
Journal of Sustainable Development
Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Journal of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental
Accountability
Land Economics
Managerial Auditing Journal
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global
Change
Natural Resources and Environment
Natural Resources Forum
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Public Management Review
Resources, Conservations and Recycling
Science
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy
Journal
Technical Resources
The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource
Economics
The Chartered Accountant
The Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance
Waste Management and Research
Water Science and Technology
Wood and Fiber Science
Total
1
1
1
4
3
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
5
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
3
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
4
1
5
6
8
14
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
4
3
1
2
2
1
1
1
3
3
3
1
7
1
1
8
1
3
1
1
1
8
3
1
2
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
21
24
18
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
111
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
23
Table 3
List of all records from HistCite analysis. (a) Local references cited: Number of references citing local papers. (b) Local citation score: Number of times a paper is cited by other
papers in the local collection. (c) Cited references. (d) Cited references per year.
No. cited
Author(s), Year
Cited References
LCRa
LCSb
CRc
CRYd
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Perman, 1994
Schaeffer and Leal de Sa, 1996
Alig et al., 1997
Gielen, 1998
Gustavsson et al., 2000
Jonas et al., 2000
Kirschbaum et al., 2001
Marland et al., 2001
Côté et al., 2002
Gielen and Yagita, 2002
Kubeczko, 2003
Gifford and Roderick, 2003
Cacho et al., 2003
Miner and Lucier, 2004
Kirschbaum and Cowie, 2004
Lenzen et al., 2004
Schlamadinger et al., 2004
King, 2004
Murray et al., 2004
Lee et al., 2005
Hammons and McConnach, 2005
Denning, 2005
Neelis et al., 2005
La Motta et al., 2005
Perez-Garcia et al., 2005
Begg, 2006
Cairns and Lasserre, 2006
Günther, 2006
Jiusto, 2006
Becken and Patterson, 2006
Kurz and Apps, 2006
Chadwick, 2006
Kundu, 2006
Putt del Pino et al., 2006
Deloitte, 2007
Zhou et al., 2007
Möllersten and Grönkvist, 2007
Ravin and Raine, 2007
Canadell et al., 2007
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
1
2
0
0
1
4
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
4
1
1
2
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
2
0
1
0
0
0
2
12
67
199
26
36
16
23
146
7
6
1
49
83
1
15
174
8
7
117
21
2
29
12
7
75
1
4
3
11
43
128
24
3
3
n/a
6
n/a
0
45
0.63
3.94
7.44
1.73
2.77
1.23
1.92
12.17
0.64
0.55
0.10
4.90
8.30
0.11
1.67
19.33
0.89
0.78
1.00
2.63
0.25
3.63
1.50
0.88
9.38
0.14
0.57
0.43
1.57
6.14
25.60
3.43
0.43
0.43
n/a
1.00
n/a
0.00
7.50
40
Cowie et al., 2007
4
0
25
4.17
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
Dilling, 2007
Babcock et al., 2007
Ratnatunga, 2007a
Ratnatunga, 2007b
McGready, 2008
Patel, 2008
Galik et al., 2008
Ahn, 2008
Gillenwater, 2008
Pearson et al., 2008
Böttcher, 2008
Ramaswami et al., 2008
Bebbington and Larrinaga-González, 2008
Kolk et al., 2008
Lippke and Perez-Garcia, 2008
Molisa and Wittneben, 2008
Hirschfeld et al., 2008
Ratnatunga, 2008
Weidema et al., 2008
KPMG, 2008
Gray and Edens, 2008
Kurz et al., 2008
Weaver, 2008
Kollmuss et al., 2008
Hopwood, 2009
Cook, 2009
Lohmann, 2009
ACCA, 2009
Beecher, 2009
Jonas et al. (2000)
Marland et al. (2001)
Kirschbaum et al. (2001)
Alig et al. (1997)
Neelis et al. (2005)
Kirschbaum et al. (2001); Kirschbaum et al.
(2004); Kurz and Apps (2006)
Canadell et al. (2007); Kirschbaum et al. (2004);
Kirschbaum et al. (2001); Schlamadinger et al.
(2004)
King (2004); Marland et al. (2001)
Ratnatunga (2007a)
Murray et al. (2004); Pearson et al. (2008)
Alig et al. (1997)
Kirschbaum et al. (2001)
Kolk et al. (2008)
Murray et al. (2004)
Ratnatunga (2007a); Ratnatunga (2007b)
Canadell et al. (2007); Kurz and Apps (2006)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-González (2008)
Marland et al. (2001)
-
2
0
0
1
0
0
2
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
2
0
0
0
2
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
4
1
2
0
0
0
0
3
1
1
8
4
0
0
0
1
4
1
0
3
0
0
5
3
9
0
0
5
n/a
n/a
8
5
n/a
7
3
2
11
15
44
56
71
16
5
1
6
74
n/a
n/a
128
1
91
70
0
80
n/a
0
0.83
n/a
n/a
1.33
1.00
n/a
1.40
0.60
0.40
2.20
3.00
8.80
11.20
14.20
3.20
1.00
0.20
1.20
14.80
n/a
n/a
25.60
0.20
18.20
17.50
0.00
20.00
n/a
0.00
(continued on next page)
24
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
Table 3 (continued )
No. cited
Author(s), Year
Cited References
LCRa
LCSb
CRc
CRYd
70
Minx et al., 2009
5
2
33
8.25
71
Huang et al., 2009
2
1
20
5.00
72
Wood and Dey, 2009
5
1
8
2.00
73
Andrew et al., 2009
3
6
42
10.50
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
Wilting and Vringer, 2009
Johnson, 2009
Ernst & Young, 2009
Coley et al., 2009
Schmidt, 2009
Ratnatunga and Balachandran, 2009
Stein and Khare, 2009
Galik et al., 2009
Ball et al., 2009
Zhang-Debreceny et al., 2009
Searchinger et al., 2009
Larsen et al., 2009
Fallaha et al., 2009
Prescott, 2009
Haque and Deegan, 2010
Green, 2010
Murphy et al., 2010
Johnson et al., 2010
Jonas et al., 2010
Gavrilova et al., 2010
Rickels et al., 2010
Wiedmann et al., 2010
2
0
0
0
0
2
0
2
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
3
4
0
0
0
0
2
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
18
42
n/a
38
7
2
0
1
7
0
0
11
2
1
7
13
n/a
4
3
3
1
33
4.50
10.50
n/a
9.50
1.75
0.50
0.00
0.25
1.75
0.00
0.00
2.75
0.50
0.25
2.33
4.33
n/a
1.33
1.50
1.00
0.33
11.00
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
Xuchao et al., 2010
Schulz, 2010
Sovacool and Brown, 2010
Caparró et al., 2010a
Caparró et al., 2010b
Baker et al., 2010
Heath et al., 2010
Pignatel and Brown, 2010
Hespenheide et al., 2010
Keith et al., 2010
Rotz et al., 2010
Olson, 2010
Blujdea et al., 2010
Young, 2010
Ngwakwe, 2010
Lindquist and Goldberg, 2010
Milne and Grubnic, 2011
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
7
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
7
9
31
n/a
1
19
13
0
0
18
26
1
4
1
4
0
0
2.33
3.00
10.33
n/a
0.50
6.33
4.33
0.00
0.00
6.00
8.67
0.33
1.33
0.33
1.33
0.00
0.00
113
Ascui and Lovell, 2011
7
1
1
0.50
114
Bowen and Wittneben, 2011
3
1
1
0.50
115
116
117
McNicholas and Windsor, 2011
Andrew and Cortese, 2011
Ratnatunga et al., 2011
2
2
6
1
0
0
0
0
0
0.00
0.00
0.00
118
119
Gutiérrez, 2011
Lovell and MacKenzie, 2011
0
3
0
1
0
3
0.00
1.50
120
Burritt et al., 2011
5
1
2
1.00
121
122
123
Collier et al., 2011
Lange, 2011
Kennedy and Sgouridis, 2011
Andrew et al. (2009); Huang et al. (2009);
Weidema et al. (2008); Wiedmann et al. (2010);
Wilting and Vringer (2009)
Andrew et al. (2009); Wilting and Vringer
(2009)
Andrew et al. (2009); Lenzen et al. (2004); Minx
et al. (2009); Weidema et al. (2008); Wiedmann
et al. (2010)
Lenzen et al. (2004); Minx et al. (2009); Wilting
and Vringer (2009)
Andrew et al. (2009); Lenzen et al. (2004)
Kundu (2006); Lohmann (2009)
Galik et al. (2008); Pearson et al. (2008)
Lohmann (2009)
Weidema et al. (2008)
Schaeffer and Leal de Sa (1996)
Marland et al. (2001)
Andrew et al. (2009); Lenzen et al. (2004);
Wilting and Vringer (2009)
Kurz and Apps (2006)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008)
Deloitte (2007)
Ascui and Lovell (2011); Bebbington and
Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008); Bowen and
Wittneben (2011); Hopwood (2009); Kolk et al.
(2008); Lohmann (2009); McNicholas and
Windsor (2011)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008);
Cook (2009); KPMG (2008); Kolk et al. (2008);
Lohmann (2009); Lovell et al. (2011);
McGready (2008)
Cook (2009); Hopwood (2009); Lohmann
(2009)
Cook (2009); Hopwood (2009)
Lohmann (2009); Pearson et al. (2008)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008);
Hopwood (2009); Kundu (2006); Lohmann
(2009); Ratnatunga (2007a); Ratnatunga
(2007b)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008);
Lohmann (2009); McGready (2008)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008);
Kolk et al. (2008); Lohmann et al. (2009);
Ratnatunga (2007a); Ratnatunga (2008)
Weidema et al. (2008); Ramaswami et al.
(2008)
0
0
2
0
0
0
n/a
6
2
n/a
3.00
1.00
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
25
Table 3 (continued )
No. cited
Author(s), Year
Cited References
LCRa
LCSb
124
125
Ramaswami et al., 2011
Stinson et al., 2011
0
3
0
0
5
11
2.50
5.50
126
Atkinson et al., 2011
3
0
14
7.00
127
128
Thurston and Eckelman, 2011
Lodhia, 2011
0
4
0
0
1
0
0.50
0.00
129
Air Pollution Consultant, 2011
Böttcher et al. (2008); Kurz et al. (2008); Kurz
and Apps (2006)
Andrew et al. (2009); Wiedmann et al. (2010);
Wood and Dey (2009)
Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008);
Burritt et al. (2011); Hopwood (2009);
Ratnatunga and Balachandran (2009)
-
0
0
n/a
of carbon emissions as follows: “The mechanism for calculating the
quantum of CO2 either emitted by a source or sequestered in
a biomass sink is referred to as ‘carbon accounting’” (p. 8), but he
notes that because they omit monetary value, they refer instead to
‘carbon emission and sequestration (CES) accounting’. Bebbington
and Larrinaga-González (2008) primarily have a monetary
perspective and emphasize the valuation of assets and liabilities. A
monetary position is also taken by Cacho et al. (2003), who state
that “payment for carbon sequestration occurs as the service is
provided and a debit occurs when carbon is released (i.e., by fire or
harvest)” (p. 158). In reference to the IPCC, Gifford and Roderick,
(2003) provide a purely non-monetary definition and explain that
“carbon (C) accounting . is to express soil C stocks as the mass of
organic C per unit ground area to a depth of 30 cm” (p. 1507).
Schmidt (2009) mentions the “balancing of CO2 equivalents” (p. 20)
while Bowen and Wittneben (2011) go even one step further and
include “the collation of this data and the communication thereof,
both within and between firms” (p. 1025).
Among these explicit definitions, a few authors (Kundu, 2006;
Weaver, 2008; Lovell and MacKenzie, 2011; Kennedy and Sgouridis,
2011) describe the term “carbon accounting” as presented in
Table 5 (implicit definitions).
In conclusion, it can be said that the definitions presented
address the measuring, collation, assessment and communication
of GHG emissions emitted by a source or sequestered in a sink and
the monetary valuation of GHG emissions (as assets and liabilities)
to provide this information to internal or external audiences.
By using alternative search terms, we also found a broad variety
of terms. Green (2010) links the term “Greenhouse Gas Accounting”
to an “inventory of gases that are put into and removed from the
atmosphere” (p. 1) and compares this inventory to measurements
of the inflow and outflow of money within financial accounting.
Larsen et al. (2009) specify the emissions to be measured: the direct
and indirect upstream and downstream emissions. Jonas et al.
(2010) explain that a full GHG accounting means that all GHGs
and removals must be taken into account, and they thus separate
full carbon accounting from partial carbon accounting. Lippke and
Perez-Garcia (2008) use the term carbon tax accounting, whereby
a tax is levied on fossil energy sources. A fairly generally used term
is “accounting for emissions”, which refers to the measurement of
GHG (Gutiérrez, 2011) or to “emissions from goods and services
consumed by UK residents, wherever they come from” (Wiedmann
et al., 2010, p. 31). Additionally, we also found definitions for the
term carbon footprint. Weidema et al. (2008) explain that
“Accounting for carbon footprints is a question of quantifying and
presenting emissions data for the whole life cycle of products in
a consistent manner” (p. 4). Other definitions exhibit a similar
understanding regarding the measuring of emissions but vary
regarding the scope of the emissions e only CO2, CO2-eq or GHG in
general (for example Johnson, 2009; Minx et al., 2009; Schmidt,
2009; Stein and Khare, 2009). At this point, we considered only
explicit definitions. For a further analysis of the implicit definitions,
see the next section.
CRc
CRYd
n/a
We conclude this section by focusing on climate gas(es). Based
on the definition presented of carbon accounting and its related
terms, it becomes clear that publications include different climate
related gases. Our analysis shows that 26 articles refer to GHG, 17
articles refer to CO2 and 13 articles refer to the six Kyoto gases. Ten
publications restrict their investigations to three GHGs: CO2, CH4,
N2O. Moreover, 34 authors use carbon as the unit of examination.
To compare carbon and CO2, carbon must be multiplied by a factor
of 3.667. In short, approximately 20% of the references address
a combination of two or more GHGs or carbon.
4.4. Focus and content of the publication
For the analysis regarding the focus and content of our pool of
papers, we refer to our bibliographic analysis, which shows that the
publications focus on three different scales: organizations, projects
and nations. After reviewing our studies, we decide to add one
additional cluster: the product scale. In some cases, it is difficult to
identify the scale because the scales are strongly interlinked: to
reduce the global climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, every nation must reduce its individual greenhouse
gas emissions or increase the possible carbon sinks. Some countries
have partly transferred this responsibility to organizations. These
organizations are not limited to decreasing their emissions: they
can also offset their emissions by projects. Common to all three of
the scales are regulations. In contrast, the product scale holds
a special position: products are the output of an organization and
are not interlinked directly to the national or the project scales.
Accounting for carbon at this scale is still optional for organizations.
Hence, to decide on the appropriate scale, we focus on the contribution of the articles. For example, does the study measure the GHG
emissions for a nation, an organization or a product? How many
emissions could be reduced by a project or a well-defined forest
area? Most often, the contribution is linked to the purpose of the
paper; for example, at what scale does the study influence regulations (external purpose) or to which decision-maker (politicians,
project-owner, company owner) (internal purpose) is the study
addressed?
According to Fig. 4, approximately 35% of the analyzed papers
concentrate on organizations, 25% of the references concern the
national scale and 28% concern the project scale. The fourth scale
encompasses papers that investigate a product. In the case of four
publications, an exact focus on one specific scale could not be
identified; therefore, we indicate that these papers represent
“different scales”.
Considering all of the papers, over half of the publications focus
on non-monetary aspects. Approximately 22% of the publications
involve both non-monetary and monetary aspects, and a similar
number of articles have a purely monetary approach (Fig. 5).
Moreover, independently of whether the focus is on non-monetary
or monetary aspects, the studies primarily target both internal and
external purposes. Studies addressing non-monetary and monetary
issues together focus on external purposes or on external and
26
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
Fig. 3. Citation analysis graph.
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
27
Table 4
Explicit definitions of carbon accounting.
Author
Explicit definitions of carbon accounting
Gifford and Roderick (2003)
"The internationally recommended practice in carbon (C) accounting. is to express soil C stocks as the mass of organic
C per unit ground area to a depth of 30 cm." (p. 1507)
"Under the ideal [carbon] accounting system, payment for carbon sequestration occurs as the service is provided and a debit
occurs when carbon is released (i.e. by fire or harvest)." (p. 158)
"The mechanism for calculating the quantum of CO2, either emitted by a source or sequestered in a biomass sink, is referred to as
‘carbon accounting’. This has very little to do with monetary values usually associated with the term ‘accounting’. Therefore,
in this paper we will refer to it as ‘carbon emission and sequestration (CES) accounting’." (p. 8)
". Accounting for carbon requires the valuation of assets (such as granted pollution rights) and liabilities (if an organization is
obliged to buy additional rights to cover their emissions)." (p. 698)
"Carbon accounting is a more precise, formal but narrower activity concerned with quantifying emissions that can be bought and
sold in accordance with a particular set of legal standards and limits." (p. 725)
". organizations will have to develop new accounting reporting practices capable of reliably measuring the carbon credits
generated by a CDM project; an area that is increasingly coming to be called carbon accounting." (p. 178)
" . we frequently hear talk of CO2 balancing or carbon accounting. What we mean in this case is the balancing of CO2
equivalents." (p. 20)
". "carbon accounting" can mean two very different things. In one sense, carbon accounting has become the accepted vernacular
when referring to the activity of measuring carbon emissions and removals and retaining an ongoing inventory of operations-based
emissions. Companies across a number of industry sectors, either voluntarily or as part of a regulatory mandate, are developing the
capabilities to measure, monitor and report their GHG gas emissions. . In another sense, carbon accounting can also refer to the
financial statement impacts resulting from an entity’s carbon regulatory environment and transacting strategies. Some of the more
common financial statement implications include accounting for the obligation to surrender allowances created as an entity emits,
accounting for allowances or offsets held by the entity, and accounting for transactions involving the future transfer of
allowances." (p. 57)
". carbon accounting can be understood as".
Cacho et al. (2003)
Ratnatunga (2007b)
Bebbington and
Larrinaga-Gonzáles (2008)
Kolk et al. (2008)
Molisa and Wittneben (2008)
Schmidt (2009)
Hespenheide et al. (2010)
Ascui and Lovell (2011)
Bowen and Wittneben (2011)
Ratnatunga et al. (2011)
"We define carbon accounting as the measurement of carbon emissions, the collation of this data and the communication thereof,
both within and between firms" (p. 1025)
"The mechanism for calculating the quantum of CO2 either emitted by a source or sequestered in a biomass sink is referred to as
“carbon accounting.” This has very little to do with monetary values usually associated with the term “accounting”. Therefore,
in this paper we will refer to it as “carbon emission and sequestration CES accounting”. (p. 132)
internal purposes. In the following, we consider the non-monetary
and monetary aspects of the publications and the purposes on the
four scales mentioned.
At the beginning of every section, we briefly highlight the
definitions or descriptions of carbon accounting and the alternative
terms used. Furthermore, we give an overview of the topics discussed (non-monetary or monetary) and present the purposes of
the studies. Every paragraph ends with a scale-specific definition.
4.4.1. Carbon accounting at the national scale
Over 90% of the literature focuses on the non-monetary
accounting of emissions. Also included in this section are studies
that address emissions accounting at the interstate scale (Jiusto,
2006), the metropolitan area scale (Sovacool and Brown, 2010),
the regional scale (Cowie et al., 2007; Wilting and Vringer, 2009)
and the city scale (Ramaswami et al., 2008, 2011; Kennedy and
Sgouridis, 2011). In these articles, no explicit definition of carbon
accounting was made, but terms such as “Full Carbon Accounting”,
“Partial Carbon Accounting” or “Greenhouse Gas Accounting” were
defined instead (for a full overview of alternative terms used see
Table 6). In the context of the Kyoto Protocol, Jonas et al. (2000) and
Kubeczko (2003) refer to Full Carbon Accounting, which encompasses all carbon flows that are associated with all terrestrial
ecosystems e atmosphere (adjusted for the oceanic system),
Table 5
Implicit definitions of carbon accounting.
Author
Implicit definitions of carbon accounting
Kundu (2006)
"Companies from developed countries, especially the European Union, need to buy or generate CERs under the Emission Trading Scheme or face
stiff penalties. Accounting from their viewpoint involves two aspects e recognition of value of carbon they are allowed to emit and cost incurred
to meet emission reduction commitments." (p. 1499)
From a carbon accounting point of view, at any one time in the future, when all harvest emissions (“costs”) are measured in relation to all carbon
sequestered (“income”) we have a) a net income (i.e. we still have forests), and b) the net income at time of measurement is larger than at the
beginning of the management period (the total forest carbon volume is bigger). (p. 29)
Lovell and MacKenzie (2011) differentiate between "carbon financial accounting and non-financial (so-called “narrative”) disclosure of corporate
climate impact and carbon benchmarking"; ". It is the latter area of activities indeed where the term “carbon accounting” has recently become
most prevalent." (p. 705)
Kennedy and Sgouridis (2011) state that a carbon accounting framework has to be formulated which can be operationalized for a city. Two
aspects have to be considered: the emissions scope 1 (internal emissions), scope 2 (Core External Emissions) and scope 3 emissions (Non-core
Emissions), and the emissions strategy. (p. 5261)
Weaver (2008)
Lovell and
MacKenzie
(2011)
Kennedy
and Sgouridis
(2011)
28
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
different
scale
product scale
3%
9%
organizational
scale
35%
national scale
25%
project scale
28%
Fig. 4. Scale of publication.
70
60
50
40
30
20
monetary
unspecific*
internal and
external
external
internal
internal and
external
external
internal
non-monetary
0
non-monetary
and monetary
10
monetary
Relative number of publications [%]
anthropogenic (for example, fossil fuel-use, cement and limestone
production) and the terrestrial biosphere. In compliance with the
Kyoto Protocol, Partial Carbon Accounting exists if “specific allowances for the inclusion of biological sources and sinks resulting
from direct human-induced land use change and forestry activities”
are made (Jonas et al., 2000, p. 20).
Two terms that are often used at the national scale are “GHG
inventory” or “carbon footprint”. A GHG inventory describes the
accounting of GHG emissions from anthropogenic sources (e.g.,
fossil fuel combustion) and their removal through sinks (e.g.,
managed forest growth or carbon sequestration) (Gillenwater,
2008). The carbon footprint refers to the measuring of GHG
caused by the consumer products and services that are demanded
by a nation (Andrew et al., 2009; Wood and Dey, 2009; Minx et al.,
2009), and it is comparable with similar approaches such as the
“Ecological Footprint” or the “Water Footprint” (Wilting and
Vringer, 2009). Hence, the carbon footprint represents a consumption perspective, while the emission inventory represents
a production perspective (Wood and Dey, 2009). Nations generally
apply the production approach (predetermined by the Kyoto
Protocol) and thus comply with the ‘polluter-pays’ principle
(Wilting and Vringer, 2009). The differences that occur depending
on the approach used are illustrated by a calculation for the UK: by
non-monetary
Fig. 5. Focus of publications: monetary versus non-monetary approach and purpose of
investigation (*an internal or external purpose was not apparent).
using the production approach, the UK reduced emissions from
1992 to 2004 by over 10%, whereas the carbon footprint of the UK
increased during that same period by over 8% (Minx et al., 2009). In
1996, Schaeffer and Leal de Sa (1996) criticized the carbon emissions accounting at national scales because it does not reflect the
true amount of national GHG emissions; carbon emissions
accounting procedures are based on domestic emissions and ignore
imported GHG. The inclusion of direct and indirect emissions is also
addressed by Kennedy and Sgouridis (2011). One methodology
applied for determining the final demand is an inputeoutput
analysis where the GHG emissions that are embodied in imports
are added to the domestic GHG emissions and the GHG emissions
embodied in exports are subtracted (Wood and Dey, 2009). A more
advanced model, the multi-regional inputeoutput (MRIO) model, is
applied by other researchers (for example Lenzen et al., 2004;
Andrew et al., 2009). Lenzen et al. (2004) use a five-region
inputeoutput model to determine GHG emissions; Andrew et al.
(2009) even calculate the carbon footprint for 87 countries and
regions. Both publications create 3 trade scenarios: first, the
domestic technology assumption for the focal country, i.e., the
emissions of the imported products are assessed by using the
domestic technology; second, a unidirectional trade model
whereby the technology that is used in the imported products is
considered but the trade between other countries is neglected; and
third, a multi-directional trade model, a ‘full’ MRIO model, that
represents all of the trades between nations or regions (Lenzen
et al., 2004; Andrew et al., 2009). The study of Andrew et al.
(2009) shows that the carbon footprint of a region encompasses
approximately 40% of the emissions that are embodied in imports,
though the specific amount depends on the applied approach. The
assumption that the imported products are produced using the
domestic technology leads to different results than using world CO2
emission intensities. For instance, using the imports of the Russian
Federation assessed by domestic technologies resulted in a higher
emissions estimate than an assessment of the imports on world CO2
emissions because of Russia’s higher emission intensity in
comparison to other countries. Moreover, Andrew et al. (2009)
reflect that a multi-directional model is better than a unidirectional model. The latter model results in better carbon footprint
estimations if the domestic assumption approach is used.
Furthermore, differences arise not only depending on the approach
used but also on how many regions are involved in the analysis.
Jiusto (2006) does not have a national perspective but has a (US)
state scale perspective. He addresses interstate trade problems; for
instance, he addresses the question of how emissions should be
allocated if they are consumed in a state that is not the place of
production. Schulz (2010) confirms in his longitudinal study of the
city state of Singapore the importance of the calculation of
imported and exported direct and indirect emissions from products
and services. A closer perspective is provided in the study of
Ramaswami et al. (2008), which deeply analyzes the GHG emissions of the city of Denver (US) using a demand-centered, hybrid
life cycle approach. The authors of that study conclude that the
inclusion of indirect energy emissions should be considered along
with direct emissions from transportation, for example air travel,
and indirect emissions embodied in key urban materials such as
food, water, fuel, and concrete. Austria’s emissions are the subject of
Gavrilova et al.’s (2010) investigation. They focus on Austria’s
bilateral trade in livestock and livestock-related products.
Further analyses focus on the CO2 emission accounting for the
non-energy use of fossil fuels in Italy (La Motta et al., 2005), Japan
(Gielen and Yagita, 2002), and the Netherlands (Neelis et al., 2005).
For the calculation of these emissions, the Non-energy use Emission Accounting Tables (NEAT) model, based on material flows, is
applied and the results are compared to the approach(es) of the
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
29
Table 6
Alternative terms used at the national, project, organizational or product scale.
Scale
Alternatively used terms
National scale
Account for CO2 emissions, carbon emissions accounting, (GHG) emission accounting, CO2 (emission) accounting, carbon storage accounting,
accounting for biospheric carbon exchange, biospheric carbon accounting, carbon stock accounting, Canada’s national forest carbon .accounting,
C accounting, GHG inventory carbon accounting, (sub-) national emission accounting, (national) carbon footprint accounting, accounting for
climate change, full carbon (and GHG) accounting, accounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, consumption-based emission accounting,
accounting for ‘emissions from consumption’, greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, accounting for virtual carbon, carbon debt accounting, climate
change accounting, accounting for carbon and other GHG emissions, accounting for sulfur dioxide emissions, national GHG accounting, physical
carbon accounting, political carbon accounting, market-enabling carbon accounting, financial carbon accounting, social/environmental carbon
accounting, national and project level carbon accounting, global-scale carbon accounting, national scale carbon accounting, accounting for carbon
stock changes, carbon and land use accounting, environmental accounting for GHG, footprint accounting
Project-based greenhouse gas accounting, accounting for biospheric carbon stock changes, carbon accounting system, accounting for carbon
sequestration, (average) carbon stock accounting, trade-based carbon sequestration accounting, carbon trade accounting, project level (carbon)
accounting, forest carbon accounting, greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation accounting, green accounting, physical carbon accounting, emissions
accounting, GHG inventory accounting, accounting for carbon sequestered, carbon flow accounting, accounting of non-CO2 gases, (full)
accounting of forest carbon stock changes, accounting of forest carbon sinks and sources, carbon tax accounting, carbon credit accounting,
GHG project accounting, Kyoto forest carbon accounting, accounting emissions reductions, account for GHG reductions, carbon (C) accounting,
forest management C offset accounting, climate accounting, (carbon) offset accounting, greenhouse gas offset accounting, carbon sequestration
accounting, national forest carbon accounting, accounting of carbon stocks and fluxes, greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, accounting
for carbon sinks, accounting for emissions, full netenet carbon accounting
(Carbon) emissions accounting, accounting for emission rights, GHG project accounting, (corporate) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting,
national and corporate emissions accounting, carbon sinks accounting, accounting for greenhouse effect, CO2 (emissions) accounting, carbon
emission and sequestration accounting (CES accounting), carbon financial (statement) accounting, accounting for emission allowances, carbon
cost accounting, accounting for carbon, carbon data accounting and reporting, accounting for carbon emission permits, accounting for the
European Union’s new emissions trading scheme, pollution offset accounting, ‘carbon footprint’ accounting, carbon credit accounting, (corporate)
greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, supply-chain GHG accounting, accounting for emission reductions, carbon business accounting, life cycle
carbon cost accounting, carbon strategic management accounting, emissions rights accounting, whole life carbon accounting, corporate level
(carbon) accounting, climate change accounting, CO2 accounting, carbon storage accounting methods, accounting for
greenhouse gas emissions, ‘engineering accounting’, greenhouse gas (GHG) foot-printing, carbon capture and storage, accounting for carbon
regulatory obligations, accounting for held emission credits and offsets, accounting and assuring corporate GHGs, accounting for carbon
commodities products, accounting of that permit, accounting of GHGs, accounting for climate change, carbon-related accounting,
non-financial accounting and reporting framework with regards to carbon, accounting for CO2 flows, carbon management accounting, monetary
carbon accounting, physical carbon accounting, carbon capital expenditure accounting, carbon flow accounting, carbon capital impact accounting,
accounting for externalities such as carbon pollution, accounting and reporting of carbon emissions
(GHG) emissions accounting, carbon flow accounting, CO2 accounting, forest biomass carbon pools accounting, accounting for greenhouse gas
emissions, climate accounting, accounting for carbon footprints, greenhouse gas accounting, carbon accounting life cycle assessment, greenhouse
gas and carbon accounting
Project scale
Organizational
scale
Product scale
IPCC. All three studies show that the carbon storage resulting from
the non-energy use of fossil fuels is overestimated and, thus, the
CO2 emissions are underestimated. The reasons for these differences are inconsistencies and missing estimates in regard to the
materials used. Thus, future research should, for instance, include
more accurate emissions estimates for solvent and product use, the
completion and clarification of the IPCC approaches, and a clear
definition for non-energy use (La Motta et al., 2005). Neelis et al.
(2005) note that the preparation of the carbon balance is a challenge, especially when assessing the emissions from ‘solvent and
other product use’.
Another aspect is examined by Kurz et al. (2008) and Stinson
et al. (2011), who focus on Canada’s managed forests and analyze
whether they have been a net source of GHG emissions or not.
Stinson et al. (2011) note that throughout the 1990 to 2008 period,
Canada’s managed forests have been a net source in 8 of 19 years,
while over all years it was a sink. The forest carbon balance is
especially influenced by 3 aspects: fire, insects and harvesting (Kurz
et al., 2008), or natural disturbances in general (Stinson et al., 2011).
The papers at the national scale address internal as well as
external issues. According to Schaeffer and Leal de Sa (1996),
carbon footprint accounting can yield positive effects for developed
and developing countries, which means for the whole earth, by
transferring the best technologies from developed to developing
countries. Moreover, this method enables countries, as a first step,
to understand their emissions scales (Jiusto, 2006) or their GHG
emissions per capita (Ramaswami et al., 2011), and then they can
decide what mitigation options are possible (Wiedmann et al.,
2010) to reduce supply and/or demand-side carbon emissions
(Jiusto, 2006). More generally, nations (or smaller areas) can adapt
their GHG emissions reduction strategy (Lenzen et al., 2004;
Becken and Patterson, 2006; Ramaswami et al., 2008) and hence,
their decision-making (Minx et al., 2009) or national environmental policy-making (Wilting and Vringer, 2009). Wood and Dey
(2009) emphasize that by applying the carbon footprint method,
the industry sectors that are primarily responsible for emissions
can be identified. The resulting policy implications are recommendations about the industry sectors to be included, free allowances, and the allocation of carbon costs. Moreover, the inclusion of
international trade can influence not only governments but also
households to select products that are from less GHG intensive
sectors or regions of the world (Ramaswami et al., 2011).
These insights can further increase public interest in other
countries and regions to account for emissions based on
a consumption approach (Wiedmann et al., 2010; Ramaswami
et al., 2011) and possibly to compare carbon footprints (Sovacool
and Brown, 2010). Furthermore, the Kyoto Protocol process can
be influenced positively (Jiusto, 2006), for instance, in further
developing international standards for CO2 accounting related to
international trade issues to establish reliable national CO2
accounts. Thus, the debate on a global climate deal can be
continued (Minx et al., 2009) with the objective of decreasing
global GHG emissions (Kennedy and Sgouridis, 2011).
In conclusion, carbon accounting at the national scale can be
summarized as the physical measurement and the non-monetary
valuation of GHG emissions, caused not only directly and indirectly by the human beings of a nation or smaller area but also by
natural disturbances, to understand the level of emissions as well as
to prepare and to realize emission strategies, to increase public
interest and to influence international accounting standards.
30
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
4.4.2. Carbon accounting at the project scale
Publications analyzed at this scale focus not only on the nonmonetary aspects (47%) but also on monetary issues (28%) or on
both (25%). At the project scale, terms such as “forest management
C offset accounting”, “carbon offset accounting”, “trade-based
carbon sequestration accounting” or “carbon trade accounting” are
mentioned (Table 6).
According to Lippke and Perez-Garcia (2008), carbon accounting
is “a complex activity particularly for the forest sector” (p. 2160)
and Gifford and Roderick (2003) explain that carbon (C) accounting
encompasses “soil C stocks [expressed] as the mass of organic C per
unit ground area to a depth of 30 cm” (p. 1507). The question
remaining is, what type of specific emissions must be considered in
a GHG account? Murray et al. (2004) state that within a forest and
agricultural sector model, a GHG account should contain not only
terrestrial carbon in forest ecosystems on existing forest stands,
regenerated and afforested stands, non-commercial carbon pools
after harvesting, harvested timber products, and agricultural lands
but also forest setasides, avoided deforestation and afforestation.
King (2004) contrasts carbon accounting with trade accounting
as well as cost accounting. Both comparisons lead to the conclusion
that carbon accounting focuses on the non-monetary aspects only.
This assumption is confirmed by the description of carbon
accounting as the estimation of the amount of carbon sequestered
by conducting reforestation.
Weaver (2008), for example, takes a generally monetary
perspective because he understands measured emissions from
harvests as ‘costs’ and carbon sequestered as ‘income’. Cacho et al.
(2003) have a similar understanding and label measured emissions
as “accounting for carbon sequestration”.
“Carbon offsetting” is another term used by Kollmuss et al.
(2008) and is described as the compensation of one’s own emissions by paying someone else to reduce his emissions. Referring to
a specific stove project, Johnson et al. (2010) define carbon offsets
as “the difference in CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions between the
baseline (typically traditional stoves) and the project (typically
improved stoves)” (p. 642). Measuring offsets from forest or other
projects and, finally, the monetary valuation of these offsets is the
subject of most of the publications at this scale. Gustavsson et al.
(2000), for example, present a conceptual work concerning the
baselines for project-based greenhouse gas accounting. Based on
four principles (accuracy, comprehensiveness, conservativeness
and practicability), they suggest how baselines could be constructed to correctly measure reduced GHG emissions or increased
GHG removals. Keith et al. (2010) propose carbon carrying capacity2
as a suitable baseline for carbon accounting in naturally forested
landscapes. Gray and Edens (2008) discuss other principles used
within different accounting methods (e.g., additionality, leakage,
and permanence) and demonstrate how these principles apply to
carbon sequestration projects in the forestry sector. Galik et al.
(2009) and Pearson et al. (2008) discuss and contrast different
forest protocols and show the differences between these protocols
by applying them to a hypothetical forest project. Galik et al. (2009)
identify differences regarding the projects’ break-even C price,
which is important for forest landowners because they only agree
to an offset project if they receive financial benefits. This discussion
is continued by Ahn (2008), who calculates the unit cost of carbon
sequestration programs and whether the programs are costeffective or not. Therefore, he applies different scenarios (tree
2
Carbon carrying capacity is defined as “the mass of carbon stored in an
ecosystem in a state of dynamic equilibrium under prevailing environmental
conditions and natural disturbance regimes, but excluding anthropogenic disturbance.” (Keith et al., 2010, p. 2971).
types and harvest or not harvest) and payment levels, which results
in a varying unit cost for carbon from 122 to 486 per ton of carbon
stored. Johnson et al. (2010) confirm that significant errors exist in
carbon offset accounting that result in different marketable carbon
savings. Transaction cost issues under the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) are at the center of Chadwick’s (2006) article.
Based on a project from Ghana, he comes to the conclusion that the
most significant transaction costs for Certified Emissions Reductions producers are incurred by the administrative processes.
King (2004), who particularly addresses monetary aspects,
criticizes the unclear basis for assessing and comparing the existing
options in terms of expected CO2 emission offsets, which is a more
difficult topic than the trade of carbon emission reductions. He
explains that traders are not interested in absolute measures of
carbon but rather in the number of valid CO2 emission offset credits
(from sequestered carbon) and their present value. However, these
offsets involve different risks such as fire, flood, drought, changes in
land use and so on, which can have a negative influence on the
expected credit outcome. To assume that a sequestered ton of
carbon can compensate for an emitted ton of carbon is not a correct
assumption. For a well-founded decision, a trader needs information about the site and project conditions that could influence the
carbon sequestration and the accounting scale for time and risk in
the scoring of carbon credits. According to King (2004), traders use
the following information: first, site and project conditions that
affect the expected rates of carbon sequestration; second, how
future credit trade auditors will account for the time and risk in the
scoring of carbon credits. For comparisons of different carbon
sequestration projects, three criteria e performance, risks, and
costs e are relevant. As it is represented by King (2004), the
sequestered carbon amount depends on the above-ground C, the
below-ground C, and the emission reductions. Regarding the
project costs, five different cost categories are considered:
conversion costs, treatment and maintenance costs, verification
costs, opportunity costs, and option costs. Four different types of
risk (performance risk, durability risk, baseline risk, displacement
risk) can arise from different sources (project risks, contract risks,
and physical risks). To assess and compare carbon sequestration
projects, a standardized carbon sequestration credit scoring equation is developed.
A further issue discussed within this field is GHG accounting for
methane recovery and oxidation project activities within the CDM.
The projects involved are coal bed or coal mine recovery and landfill
gas (LFG) recovery. Möllersten and Grönkvist (2007) analyze the
baseline methodologies approved by the CDM Executive Board
regarding the global warming impact of CO2 arising through
methane oxidation. They draw the conclusion that the potential
GHG decreases from LFG recovery projects are overvalued.
Blujdea et al. (2010) analyze to what extent the methodologies
in the land use, land use change and forestry sector of the Annex I
party’s national GHG systems and CDM projects are comparable.
They conclude that the consistency and comparability of the
emission reductions generated should be revised. Additionally,
they suggest that a project framework guideline be developed to
facilitate easier preparation and realization. As described above,
many forest projects, as well as other carbon offset options, such as
ocean iron fertilization (see Rickels et al., 2010), are the subject of
analysis.
As already mentioned, researchers have also developed
improved “best practices” approaches for forest management offset
accounting (Galik et al., 2008). Primarily, researchers suggest
a standardized offset methodology (Galik et al., 2009) or an
approach that has an “accurate, comprehensive, conservative
baseline which [is] as simple as possible” (Gustavsson et al., 2000)
or they request an easily applicable project framework guideline
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
(Blujdea et al., 2010). Similar standardizations are demanded for
other project types (Möllersten and Grönkvist, 2007).
From a monetary point of view, it has been shown that the
carbon accounting system applied determines the incentives to
landholders and the costs to the investor (Cacho et al., 2003; Keith
et al., 2010). Moreover, the transaction costs, especially for small
scale projects, must be reduced (Chadwick, 2006) and the transaction costs should be investigated more deeply (Galik et al., 2009).
The following statement summarizes this section: “This
market also signifies a trade in debt: it is premised on the expected
demand by companies with emissions debt that is, those companies that in emitting more than their share have “borrowed”
allowances. Like the financial system’s wide spread of debt that
characterizes the capitalist economy of late, the market for carbon
offsets could be observed as an extension of the creation of debt
from the economic system to the ecological system” (Gutiérrez,
2011, p. 657).
To conclude, carbon accounting at the project scale can be
defined as the measuring and non-monetary valuation of carbon
and GHG emissions and offsetting from projects, and the
monetary assessment of these emissions with offset credits to
inform project-owners and investors but also to establish standardized methodologies.
4.4.3. Carbon accounting at the organizational scale
As mentioned at the beginning of chapter 4.4, 45 out of 129
publications address primarily organizational issues and have both
a non-monetary and a monetary focus. Perhaps this joint focus is
the reason behind the broad understanding of carbon accounting.
The most comprehensive definition of carbon accounting is given,
as already mentioned above, by Hespenheide et al. (2010). They
distinguish between two understandings of carbon accounting. The
first understanding refers “to the activity of measuring [direct and
indirect] carbon emissions and removals and retaining an ongoing
inventory of operations-based emissions” (p. 57), whereas the
measurement, monitoring, and reporting can be voluntary or
mandatory. Carbon accounting in this sense can be the basis for
emission reductions, cost savings, and trading of emissions allowances and offset credits. In the other understanding, carbon
accounting focuses on the financial statement of a company and its
changes because of changed regulations or transaction strategies.
Kundu (2006) also considers the emissions quota of an organization
and the cost involved to comply with the emission reduction
commitments. As one author, cited on the project scale, suggests,
carbon accounting is also represented as the counterpart to cost
accounting (Prescott, 2009) or financial accounting and is understood as the estimated GHG emissions (Green, 2010), and therefore
all emissions that are caused by direct as well as indirect operational activities are incorporated (Prescott, 2009). Kolk et al. (2008)
differentiate between carbon accounting and carbon disclosure.
They understand carbon accounting as the quantification of emissions that can be purchased or sold. On the contrary, carbon
disclosure not only includes the measurement of emissions but also
organizational preparations, technological investments, and
trading and offsets. Bowen and Wittneben (2011), who take
a broader view regarding carbon accounting, include with the
measurement of carbon emissions the collation of data and
communication. By contrast, Olson (2010) distinguishes between
carbon accounting and carbon reporting and auditing. As already
mentioned above, Ratnatunga (2007b, 2007a, 2008) and
Ratnatunga et al. (2011) suggest using ‘CES accounting’ if the goal is
to measure CO2 emissions.
Bebbington and Larrinaga-González (2008), who focus on the
balance sheet of a company, highlight that carbon accounting
encompasses on the one hand, the valuation of assets (e.g., granted
31
pollution rights), and on the other hand, the assessment of liabilities, assuming that an organization has to purchase further permits
to compensate for its emissions. Accountancy companies have
a comparable understanding of carbon accounting (see Deloitte,
2007; KPMG, 2008; Ernst and Young, 2009).
As with the other scales, alternative terms are also used, such as
“greenhouse gas accounting”, “corporate GHG accounting” or
“emissions accounting”. According to Air Pollution Consultant
(2011), GHG accounting encompasses the measuring of GHG
emissions from direct and indirect activities. Fallaha et al. (2009),
who specify the term GHG accounting to corporate GHG
accounting, add that emissions arise “from the annual operation of
a . management business unit” (p. 892). Young (2010) associates
”measurement and data capture systems” with GHG accounting (p.
89), and Burritt et al. (2011) extend the measuring of GHG by
managing GHG and communicating the information. Green (2010)
compares GHG accounting with financial accounting: the former
measures gases “that are put into and removed from the atmosphere” (p. 1), whereas the latter measures “the inflow and outflow
of money” (p. 1). Stein and Khare (2009) use the term “carbon
footprint”, which is the “amount of carbon dioxide equivalent
emitted during the operation of a . plant for one year” (p. 293).
To structure this section, we use the differentiation of environmental accounting into management accounting and financial
accounting and thus, also follow Ratnatunga, who differentiates
between carbon management accounting (Ratnatunga, 2008) and
carbon financial accounting (Ratnatunga, 2007b).
4.4.3.1. Carbon management accounting. Burritt et al. (2011)
propose a carbon management accounting framework that is
based on the environmental management accounting framework of
Schaltegger and Burritt (2000) and Burritt et al. (2002). In this
suggested carbon management framework, monetary carbon
accounting and physical carbon accounting are distinguished.
These two streams are again subdivided into timeframe (past
oriented vs. future oriented), type of information generated
(routine vs. ad hoc), and time horizon (short-term vs. long-term).
This framework was used to analyze the practice of carbon
management accounting in ten German companies. The study of
Burritt et al. (2011) shows that four companies focus on physical
information only, four companies focus on physical and monetary
information, and only two companies look solely at monetary
figures. Additionally, they note that carbon accounting is often
connected with physical information, but for climate change
information, monetary assessment is also of great importance.
Ratnatunga differentiates the purely physical accounting of
GHG emissions (“CES accounting”) from carbon cost accounting
(Ratnatunga, 2007a) and carbon (strategic) management
accounting (Ratnatunga, 2007b). Within carbon cost accounting,
issues such as trading in carbon allowances (or permits), investment in low-CO2 emission technologies, counting the costs of
carbon regulation compliance and passing on the increased cost of
carbon regulation to consumers through higher prices are of
particular interest to companies (Ratnatunga, 2007a). According to
Ratnatunga and Balachandran (2009), there is a need for life cycle
costing techniques to realize accurate carbon cost accounting.
Carbon (strategic) management accounting addresses different
issues within business policy, human resources management,
marketing strategy, product marketing strategy, pricing strategy,
international business strategy, promotional strategy, supply-chain
strategy, and performance evaluation. More specifically, the aspects
in carbon (strategic) management considered are carbon footprint
activities, the communication of carbon efficiency as an attribute to
already existing customers as well as to new ones, and the integration of packaging into the marketing strategy. Monetary aspects
32
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
mentioned are the Carbon Weighted Average Cost of Capital and
the Carbon Economic Value Added (Ratnatunga, 2008).
In contrast to Ratnatunga (2007a, 2008, 2009), Green (2010)
focuses on the GHG Protocol e a standard for calculating and
reporting GHG emissions at the corporate scale. At the corporate
scale, the GHG Protocol is described as the “gold standard” in
emissions reporting and “is intended to be a ‘GHG-GAAP’”, which
means that it is intended to be the equivalent to the financial
accounting Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
(Sundin and Ranganathan, 2002, cited in Green, 2010, p. 5). Similarly to financial accounting, GHG accounting can be voluntary or
mandatory. Currently, different reporting programs exist worldwide: voluntary governmental initiatives (for example USEPA
Climate Leaders Program or The Climate Registry), industry associations and national industry initiatives (for example, the International Council for Forest and Paper Associations), and nongovernmental initiatives (Carbon Disclosure Program or Climate
Neutral Network). Moreover, the ISO adopted the proposed
measurement and reporting of GHG emissions and in 2006, published the ISO 14064-Specification with guidance for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals at
the organizational scale. Voluntary reporting is often seen as an
antecedent for mandatory emission trading. In regard to mandatory
reporting, some power plants in the EU are obliged to report their
emissions. In contrast to the above mentioned GHG programs,
emission trading schemes (with the exception of one) do not adopt
the GHG protocol due to the scale of reporting. The GHG Protocol
focuses on the company scale; the emission trading schemes
mostly focus on the facility scale (Green, 2010).
Olson (2010) also indicates the necessity for standardized
reporting and additionally, the need to audit the GHG emissions.
Currently, the number of companies reporting their GHG emissions
is increasing, whereas only a few reports are audited. To enhance
the credibility of reports, it is recommended to use an established
reporting framework and/or independent auditors. Olson (2010)
compares GHG emissions reporting and auditing with financial
reporting and auditing concerning, for instance, the legal and
regulatory environment, materiality thresholds, or accounting
calculation methods, and shows that no clear regulation exists
overall.
Furthermore, there are also case studies at the corporate scale
(for example, Fallaha et al., 2009; Stein and Khare, 2009; Xuchao
et al., 2010). Fallaha et al.’s (2009) case study focuses on a waste
management business unit and differentiates between GHG
accounting and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). GHG accounting is
linked to the GHG Protocol, which involves direct and indirect
emissions. In contrast to GHG accounting, LCA is not limited to
only global warming, and it covers other impact categories. The
investigation shows that scope 3 emissions contribute to
approximately 10% of climate change. Moreover, scope 3 emissions also influence other impact categories, for example resource
use. Stein and Khare (2009) calculate the carbon footprint of
a potash plant and clearly represent the additional value of
a carbon footprint analysis. Huang et al. (2009) also come to the
conclusion that scope 3 emissions are often underestimated,
which their corporate carbon footprint calculations for different
industry sectors in Australia and the US demonstrate. For example,
if the scope 3 emissions are not considered in the publishing
sector, only 6% of the total emissions in Australia and 13% of the
total emissions in the US are captured. Moreover, the accounting
threshold plays an important role: increasing the threshold leads
to more precise carbon footprints but also to an increasing effort
in calculation.
A purely non-monetary focus on carbon or GHG accounting and
the underlying measuring of CO2 or GHG in general is evinced in
Beecher (2009), Côté et al. (2002), Haque and Deegan (2010), Patel
(2008), Putt del Pino et al. (2006), and Ravin and Raine (2007).
The above mentioned carbon footprint calculations are still
voluntary for organizations. On the contrary, since 2010, different
industry sectors in the UK such as the water sector, must report
their emissions under the Carbon Reduction Commitment according to specific frameworks. Moreover, carbon must be considered
for the purposes of investment planning. That means that the GHG
emissions of investment options have to be quantified, as well as
the related costs. The boundaries of both e carbon accounting and
cost accounting e should be identical. Thus, the whole life cycle of
an investment should be observed. Whole life carbon accounting
therefore encompasses embodied carbon emissions and operational carbon emissions. The whole life carbon cost can be calculated by assessing the emissions with a shadow price that takes
a specific damage rate increase and a discount rate into account.
The authors see future research possibilities in the improvement of
the measurement of embodied and operational emissions (Prescott,
2009).
Since the introduction of the EU ETS in 2005, it has been obligatory to capture information about CO2 emissions for power
generation plants and energy-intensive facilities (production and
processing of ferrous metals, mineral industry, and other activities,
that is, from industrial plants for the production of pulp from timber
or other fibrous materials as well as paper and board with
a production capacity exceeding 20 tons per day). The captured
emissions information must be transmitted to the Emission Trading
Authority (Directive 2003/87/EC). Since the beginning of 2012, the
aviation sector has been integrated into the EU ETS by Directive
2008/101/EC. This inclusion means that emission rights need to
be purchased for all flights that start or land in a certain sovereign
territory in a quantity that is linked to the ejected emissions. From
2013, further GHGs will be included within the emissions trading
scheme, such as PFCs, which are ejected from the production of
primary aluminum, or the N2O from some chemical manufacturing
processes (Directive 2009/29/EC). It is expected that the range of
sectors will expand continuously either directly through the inclusion of a sector or indirectly through the inclusion of other GHGs.
According to Kolk et al. (2008), competitive risk is more important
to companies than the risk from the introduction of carbon markets
or carbon taxes because low emission products and technologies are
replacing carbon-intensive products and services. To meet these
risks, companies need to identify the CO2-intensive processes to
implement the appropriate countermeasures. Consequently,
a direct incentive exists to include CO2 and GHG emissions in
business decisions. Moreover, Bebbington and Larrinaga-González
(2008) emphasize the uncertainties regarding climate change. On
the one hand, they note how the different developments in climate
change and the associated risks are treated. Therefore, they
recommend that organizations should communicate with their
stakeholders. On the other hand, they mention the current uncertain situation regarding carbon accounts, for example, the boundaries of organizations for carbon reporting/accounting. Moreover,
future research should focus on the interplay between how organizations tackle climate change and how their carbon position and
management is disclosed. Another interesting issue is the value
relevance of disclosures about exposure and carbon management.
From an internal, non-monetary point of view, the GHG calculation opens up the opportunity to generate organization-relevant
carbon and GHG key performance indicators (Association of
Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 2009) to identify emission reductions (Ravin and Raine, 2007) and associated investment
possibilities (Stein and Khare, 2009). The application of software for
monitoring and reporting purposes leads to decreased costs,
improved verification, and in the end, to higher transparency (Patel,
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
2008). Some researchers suggest that climate change impact
assessment should be extended to scope 3 emissions and to other
impact categories for improved decision-making (Fallaha et al.,
2009) and GHG emission risk and opportunity management (Putt
del Pino et al., 2006). Molisa and Wittneben (2008) note that
CDM projects can also support product innovation and dematerialization. Moreover, the associated costs of meeting emission
reduction commitments play a major role (Kundu, 2006). Burritt
et al. (2011) also come to the conclusion that the majority of the
investigated companies use carbon-related information for internal
purposes to fulfill their voluntary reduction commitment but also
for cost accounting and for resource allocation. Carbon-related
information is also used to ensure legal compliance. Other reasons
for measuring GHG or calculating carbon footprints are benchmarks (Xuchao et al., 2010) or for presentation to consumers and
policy makers (Stein and Khare, 2009). Huang et al. (2009)
recommend that the application of Input-Output Analysis for
supply-chain GHG accounting be more widely promoted. Hence,
education and training as well as supporting materials and information are necessary.
4.4.3.2. Carbon financial accounting. Accountancy firms, in particular, address carbon-related financial accounting issues, which is
one reason why we extended our literature sample beyond
journals. The term “carbon accounting” focuses implicitly on
accounting for emission rights or emission permits (see Deloitte,
2007; KPMG, 2008; Ernst and Young, 2009).
Currently, within the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or the US-GAAP, there is no accounting standard or
interpretation that specifies how to account for emission permits.
Usually, organizations conform to the general principles of IFRS
(Ernst and Young, 2009) and, as a result, there is a multiplicity of
possible realizations in practice (Hopwood, 2009). It is being discussed which type of assets the emission allowances should be
classified as e an inventory asset or an intangible asset e and how
the initial recording of emissions should take place e as costs or as
fair value. Moreover, the emission of carbon causes a future obligation or, according to the IFRS or US-GAAP, a liability that has to be
estimated and measured. Furthermore, there are impacts on decision making resulting from participation in the EU ETS. Because of
these two aspects, a company needs to illustrate its accounting
policy to the market (Deloitte, 2007). Ratnatunga (2007b) confirms
that the “current financial accounting framework appears to be illequipped to provide the information required by companies to
meet the challenge of global warming” (p. 3) because accounting
information systems are not created to cope with physical measures
such as CO2 sources and sinks. Another problem arises from the
missing international carbon accounting and reporting standards: it
is very difficult to compare data sets (ACCA, 2009; Lindquist and
Goldberg, 2010). The impact of the lack of a standardized
accounting framework on financial reports is also discussed by
Bebbington and Larrinaga-González (2008), Günther (2006), Kundu
(2006), and McGready (2008). Due to these difficulties, companies
need to explain their accounting policies to investors and other
stakeholders (Deloitte, 2007; Ernst and Young, 2009) because the
purpose behind financial accounting is to provide information to
their shareholders. To guarantee a true and fair view of emissions
allowances in the balance sheet, traditional accounting principles
should be developed and applied (ACCA, 2009).
Even though our investigations at the organizational scale
showed that authors mostly refer to CO2, the present regulations will
expand to cover other GHGs, such as CH4, in the future. Therefore,
a definition of carbon accounting should consider this fact.
In conclusion, carbon accounting at the organizational scale can
be summarized as the voluntary and/or mandatory recognition of
33
direct and indirect GHG emissions, their evaluation in nonmonetary and monetary terms as well as their auditing and
reporting for internal purposes (carbon management accounting)
and external purposes (voluntary and mandatory carbon financial
accounting).
4.4.4. Carbon accounting at the product scale
Carbon accounting at the product scale is characterized by
publications addressing non-monetary issues (11 out of 12). A
definition of carbon accounting is not provided but, as is the same
with other scales typical terms used are “(GHG) emissions
accounting”, “carbon flow accounting”, “CO2 accounting”, and
“carbon footprint accounting”. Larsen et al. (2009) describe the
term “GHG emissions accounting” with reference to the product
analyzed: glass waste. From their point of view, GHG emissions
accounting encompasses four sources: indirect upstream emission,
direct activities at the material recovery facility, activities at the
bottle-wash facility, and indirect downstream activities. Weidema
et al. (2008) explain that “Accounting for carbon footprints is
a question of quantifying and presenting emissions data for the
whole life cycle of products in a consistent manner” (p. 4), which is
a comparable understanding to that of Larsen et al. (2009).
At this scale, several case studies have been conducted. Larsen
et al. (2009), for example, compare two types of glass recycling e
remelting of cullet and reuse of whole bottles by refilling e with
respect to emitted GHG. The reuse of bottles should be prioritized
because of the lower emissions. Coley et al. (2009) empirically
apply the food miles concept to two contrasting food distribution
systems: a large-scale vegetable food box system versus a supply
system where the consumers have to travel to a local farm shop to
buy their vegetables. The analysis shows that the second alternative
is preferable if the customers drive less than 7.4 km. To estimate the
carbon footprint of different dairy production systems by using
a partial LCA (cradle to farm gate) is the focus of Rotz et al. (2010).
Changing management strategies, for instance changed diets or
elimination or improvement of manure storage, are key possibilities for companies to reduce their carbon footprint. A value chain
view of the forest-based industry is captured by Miner and Lucier
(2004), while Perez-Garcia et al. (2005) examine the relevance of
forest products for energy displacement and carbon cycling. Gielen
(1998) notes that significant amounts of carbon are stored in
materials, products, and landfill sites, which are not properly
accounted for in current GHG emissions statistics and that international trade needs to be recognized.
The studies at the product scale undertaken address internal as
well as external issues. Analyzing the value chain can enhance the
sustainability of the product (Miner and Lucier, 2004) and can
support green supply-chain management decisions (Thurston and
Eckelman, 2011). According to Schmidt (2009), an LCA or
a carbon footprint can only support decision making at the organizational scale if the analysis is conducted accurately and is
comparable to the real production conditions. Currently, companies
still have problems in calculating carbon footprints, in particular
small- and medium-sized companies. To reduce the calculation
problem, Larsen et al. (2009) suggest that in GHG emissions
accounting, companies should look at energy sources and potential
material substitution.
Carbon labels on products are of high public interest. Indicating
products with a carbon footprint label can also lead to customer
irritation because it is difficult to decide for or against a food system
(or also a product) based on a life cycle approach (Coley et al.,
2009). To support customers, the product could be marked with
two figures that compare CO2 equivalents per product with emissions from reference products in a particular product group
(Schmidt, 2009). An advantage of a value chain analysis is that
34
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
policy positions can be found that meet with the approval of
industry and its stakeholders (Miner and Lucier, 2004). To support
forest products due to their positive CO2 balance (Perez-Garcia
et al., 2005) or to restructure agricultural production are two
possibilities that can be realized through policy (Hirschfeld et al.,
2008). In summary, there are two development directions: first,
the Publicly Available Specification 2050 that encourages voluntary
agreement, product labeling and consumer choice and second, the
consideration of environmental costs that are taken into account
when product prices are calculated. At a minimum, carbon footprints provide the possibility of raising customer awareness about
the environmental discussion, driving LCA thinking and eventually
supporting a consistent framework to measure the environmental
impacts of products and services (Weidema et al., 2008).
In conclusion, carbon accounting at the product scale can be
summarized as the measuring of direct and indirect CO2 or GHG
emissions of products throughout their entire life cycle to reduce
product-related CO2 emissions and to inform and increase the
awareness of the interested consumers and other stakeholders.
Having presented the different concepts, we conduct a qualitative and a quantitative content analysis to draw an overall picture of
carbon accounting, i.e., we use a “combination of methodologies in
the study of the same phenomenon” (Denzin, 1978, p. 297) to
achieve a triangulation of our results (Denzin, 1978; Flick, 1992).
As explained above, as a first step we classified the literature
into four scales (national, project, organizational and product
scale). Then, we decided whether the publications focus on nonmonetary or monetary aspects or on both. Finally, we asked for
the purpose of the studies. According to this classification, we
developed Fig. 6 and assigned each publication to one area or to
6
126
different areas. As Fig. 6 shows, the publications focus more on nonmonetary issues than on monetary issues, but at the organizational
and the project scale, both monetary and non-monetary aspects are
of importance. Furthermore, the studies are addressed to both
internal and external audiences.
For the quantitative analysis, we chose the Leximancer software
tool to conduct a follow-up text analysis with the same articles that
were analyzed during our qualitative content analysis. Leximancer
Pty Ltd. (2010) “can be used to analyze the content of collections of
textual documents and to display the extracted information visually” (p. 4). As Leximancer searches for context models in the
meaning of texts (Crofts and Bisman, 2010), it breaks down the
information “into manageable categories and relationships to
quantify and analyze text” (Leximancer Pty Ltd., 2010, p. 8). We
conduct a relational analysis that “measures how such identified
concepts are related to each other within the documents”
(Leximancer Pty Ltd., 2010, p. 9). Themes are presented as colored
circles that group clusters of concepts. For our body of literature,
when choosing a theme size of 50%, we could identify the themes
emissions, accounting, carbon, project, IPCC and organization
(Fig. 7). Themes are ‘heat-mapped’, meaning that red colors denote
important themes and blue colors denote the least relevant themes.
All themes comprise concepts, so that “visually emergent concept
groups are referred to as themes” (Watson et al., 2005, p. 1234). The
major theme of “emissions” comprises GHG, national, services,
greenhouse gas, trade, electric, energy, transport, use, water,
consumption, CO2, production, products, total, used and NEAT.
“Emissions” summarizes all of the aspects concerning the sources
of greenhouse gases throughout the value chain, i.e., from energy
use and production to transport and the use phase. The minor
theme “IPCC”, next to “emissions”, represents the special influence
Nation
13
81
17 18
91 100
20
26
32
48
50
55
63
64
Project
2
6
52
8
62
10
70
15
72
16
74
22
95
23
97
29
98
30
123
7
19
20
47
50
51
64
75
101
105
106
127
4
Product
33
56
67
104
35
58
68
110
43
60
76
111
44
65
79
120
53
66
87
128
14
43
9
69
87
Organization
internal
25
46
33
71
88
78
53
34
79
89
114
85
56
38
80
104
120
31
124
49
125
31
125
39
126
58
68
86
109
128
Carbon management accounting
Monetary carbon management
accounting
Non-monetary carbon
management accounting
103
21
non-monetary
monetary
Monetary carbon regulatory and Non-monetary carbon regulatory
and voluntary accounting
voluntary accounting
28
43
60
87
117
33
45
65
104
119
35
53
66
110
120
54
76
111
121
56
83
116
128
9
53
71
89
114
external
59
3
18
1
126
13
27
32
4
36
48
50
55
64
81
91
99
100
122
61
40
Fig. 6. Carbon accounting.
3
64
41
14
5
75
49
25
42
34
54
80
96
116
57
43
68
87
107
128
38
56
82
104
120
59
77
46
69
88
109
129
78
102
127
7
81
12
84
19
90
20
91
26
94
36
101
37
105
47
108
51
118
50
122
62
70
2
73
8
74
11
92
15
93
16
95
24
98
29
123
30
124
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
35
organizations
organizations
sustainability
corporate
social
CDM
environmental
projects
reporting
vissue accounting market
financial
project
businessdevelopment
companies public
standard
v
report
project
research
trading
economic
accounting
climate policy government cost
Climate Change
costs
paper
information
credits
work change Kyoto Protocol
value
future
Australia
international
IPCC
approach
global
period
example countries
time
GHG
national
available
management
UK
sequestration
system carbon
analysis
services
emission
emissions
carbon
greenhouse
emissions
forest
gas
trade
natural
forests
energy
area
water
electricity
use used using
land
transport
fuel
consumption
total data
soil
CO2
models
CO
products
production
NEAT
Fig. 7. Quantitative analysis by using Leximancer software.
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on this topic.
The second theme “accounting” includes concepts such as
economics, research, government, Kyoto Protocol, climate, change,
internal, information, global, countries, national, emission, system,
example, approach, paper, work, report, companies, public, trading,
development, corporate and social, i.e., the management and
organizational perspective focusing on the information provision.
The minor theme “organization” is located rather close to this
theme and confirms this interpretation. The third theme of
“carbon” includes the concepts natural, using, data, models, dead,
soil, forest/s, sequestration, time, period, management, available,
year, example, analysis and takes a different perspective by
emphasizing the carbon sinks in nature and including the time
perspective. Finally, the theme “project” envelops standard,
market, CDM, future, value, credits, cost/s and development and
can be easily identified as representing the project scale.
Based on this semantic analysis we can deduce the following
overarching definition:
Carbon accounting comprises the recognition, the nonmonetary and monetary evaluation and the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions on all levels of the value chain and the
recognition, evaluation and monitoring of the effects of these
emissions on the carbon cycle of ecosystems.
As we showed in this article, carbon accounting is a topic with
increasing importance that is applied in different disciplines and in
different countries all over the world. The clustering of the 129
publications into four scales was useful to illustrate the characteristics of these scales. Our analysis has shown that publications focusing
on nations or on products concentrate on the measurement and the
valuation of emissions, whereas non-monetary and monetary values
are salient at the project and organizational scale. We observed that,
especially at the national scale, the main emphasis is on GHG emissions. In contrast, at the project and at the organizational scale,
attention is drawn to CO2 emissions, which is attributable to current
regulations. Considering that regulations at the different scales will
be extended, all GHG emissions should be considered. Furthermore,
it was remarkable that on the organizational scale in particular, the
term “carbon accounting” was defined more often than on other
scales. This difference raises the question as to whether business
scholars have a higher requirement for defining technical terms. On
the other scales, terms such as “GHG accounting” are used more often
than “carbon accounting”. Furthermore, it becomes obvious that
“GHG inventory” is a frequently applied term rather than “carbon
accounting”. Similarly, the term “carbon footprint” is commonly used
on the national scale but also on the product scale. On the project
level, the term “carbon offset” is applied. Based on our synopsis, we
can conclude that different disciplines prefer specialized terms.
Although the term “carbon accounting” is mostly used on the organizational scale, the understanding of the term is rather broad
compared to the other scales. Some authors have a purely nonmonetary understanding and contrast carbon accounting with
terms such as cost accounting and financial accounting; other
authors have a more monetary perspective. One topic particularly
discussed on the organizational scale is the auditing of the measured
CO2 emissions. This step is gaining in importance when legal
consequences such as emissions trading are based upon carbon
36
K. Stechemesser, E. Guenther / Journal of Cleaner Production 36 (2012) 17e38
accounting. It can be summarized that researchers from different
disciplines, but even within one research field, have a different
understanding as to what carbon accounting is. To include all views,
not only the measurement of emissions should be considered but
also their valuation in non-monetary and in monetary terms
regardless of whether the emissions can be attributed to a nation,
a project, an organization or a product.
Moreover, the results of the present study emphasize that not
only direct but also indirect emissions should be encompassed. To
realize the exact calculations of GHG emissions, the current regulations at all scales must be strengthened. On that basis, national
mitigation strategies and international agreements can be
improved and projects can be better assessed. Financial assessment
is especially important for companies to align their carbon corporate strategy. Regulations in respect to carbon financial accounting
are necessary to allow a true and fair view of a company. Although
standards such as the ISO 14064 series have been developed, this
continued fragmented understanding can be attributed to the fact
that carbon accounting is a rather new research topic. Another
aspect that is common to all of the scales is that the results address
an internal as well as an external audience. From the internal
perspective, the controlling of processes and decision making are
the focus. However, the external audiences should be informed
about the emissions measured and should influence regulations.
At the beginning of our systematic review, the question arising
was whether carbon accounting is an integral part of environmental accounting. We can conclude that carbon accounting is
a part of environmental accounting, which can, similar to environmental accounting, be realized on different scales.
Our systematic literature review also revealed some shortcomings. As usual for a systematic review, we had to restrict the search
strings. Therefore, we did not include the publications that focus,
for example, on emission trading or on carbon footprints and that
do not use the term “carbon accounting”. We are aware that there
are various publications in these areas that might address similar
issues and therefore might add to our discussion, but our main
research question was to understand the term carbon accounting
across different research areas. Additionally, we selected search
strings in English and databases that are internationally wellknown to avoid a language bias. A literature search in other
languages might have resulted in another distribution of the
authors’ affiliation and authors’ geographical origin, and perhaps in
a different distribution across the four scales. An additional analysis
of German publications has shown that the content and focus are
comparable with those of our 129 analyzed publications. To avoid
a particular direction, for example on management literature, we
searched in several databases (with a management as well an
environmental science background). The decision for or against one
publication is accompanied by a subjective assessment. But, we had
clear rules as to whether a publication had to be included or not.
We did not include publications if they only mentioned carbon
accounting or carbon accounting was only considered as a part of
sustainability accounting.
5. Conclusions
In summary, it can be stated that we did not find a comprehensive and detailed definition of “carbon accounting” covering the
different scales (national, project, organizational, and product
scale). The reason for this lack is that the publications investigated
at the national and the project scale have a clear focus on the nonmonetary accounting of carbon emissions, whereas on the project
and organizational scale, both non-monetary and monetary aspects
are considered to be important. Therefore, we delivered separate
definitions on each scale. Moreover, we deduce an overall, but
therefore sparse, definition based on the semantic analysis: carbon
accounting comprises the recognition, the non-monetary and
monetary evaluation and the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions on all levels of the value chain and the recognition, evaluation
and monitoring of the effects of these emissions on the carbon cycle
of ecosystems. This proposed definition can be used by academics
to operationalize their research questions, by legislators to delimit
obligatory and voluntary accounting and by practitioners to
establish carbon accounting in companies.
Finally, we want to draw attention to the consequences of
climate change (level effects, e.g., rising temperatures; decreasing
precipitation amounts; or stability changes, e.g., extreme weather
events), which requires adaptation strategies on all scales. Considering these impacts, an extension of the term carbon accounting to
become climate accounting is an imperative.
Acknowledgment
We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comprehensive
comments on this paper.
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