Corporate net zero commitment, strategic sustainability and water management: the role of carbon accounting

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🔬研究者:Provides a comprehensive framework linking carbon accounting, water disclosure, and synergistic management, with empirical evidence from S&P 500 CDP data.

🏢実務担当者:Demonstrates the value of long-term carbon targets and integrated carbon-water management for improving environmental performance and disclosure quality.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the role of board independence in water disclosure and the effectiveness of synergistic management, informing policy on integrated sustainability reporting.

This thesis examines the critical role of carbon accounting in measuring, managing, and reporting organisational environmental impacts, with a focus on carbon emissions, water usage, and overall sustainability performance. As climate change and ecological degradation become increasingly urgent global challenges, organisations face growing pressure from stakeholders to reduce their environmental footprint and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals. Carbon accounting has emerged as a crucial tool for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions, setting reduction targets, and tracking progress over time (Stechemesser & Guenther, 2012). This research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative analysis with qualitative content analysis of corporate sustainability reports. Drawing on stakeholder theory, institutional theory, legitimacy theory, and the natural resource-based view of the firm, this study develops a comprehensive framework for understanding the drivers and outcomes of carbon-water synergistic management practices. Firstly, this study examines the impact of carbon reduction targets on corporate carbon performance. By analysing data from Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) companies participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) from 2010 to 2019, this study finds that firms with long-term carbon reduction targets demonstrate superior carbon performance compared to those without such targets. To address the critical issue of sustainability risks management and carbon reduction, this study employs a case study approach to examine the potential of digital gift cards as an innovative solution for reducing plastic usage and mitigating carbon emissions. The life cycle assessment reveals significant environmental benefits of transitioning from physical to digital gift cards. This study also explores the role of corporate water disclosure. The results indicate that board independence has a significant impact on water disclosure practices. This study also investigates the effectiveness of carbon-water synergistic management practices in driving environmental performance. Using a novel measure of synergistic management quality, the study demonstrates that companies with high-quality carbon-water management achieve better synergy performance in terms of both carbon emissions and water usage reduction. Finally, to synthesise insights from the previous sections, this study examines the overarching role of carbon accounting in integrated sustainability management.