Carbon Emissions Trading and Supply Chain, Information Disclosure

Guest Editors

Background:

As one of the most significant challenges facing societies, climate change is increasingly attracting public and corporations’ attention, urging transitions towards low-carbon economies (Stern, 2006; IPCC, 2019). Demands for enhanced transparency by investors, regulators, and other stakeholders have increased. Sustainability adoption and carbon engagement in supply chains are of concern by stakeholders due to limited non-systematic governing mechanisms and reporting, particularly related to internal policies, set-ups of purchasing criteria and management of suppliers relations and collaborations (Gimenez and Tachizawa, 2012; Sancha et al., 2016). In response to these concerns, corporations have started to provide information pertaining to sustainability and carbon challenges and opportunities. This special issue will include research on carbon accounting, carbon management, and sustainability accounting and assurance in influencing supply chains, accounting and financial outcomes.   

A systematic and comprehensive examination of carbon accounting and sustainability reporting (e.g. carbon pricing, carbon emissions performance and disclosures, and related of assurance around carbon emission targets and controls) from multi-disciplinary perspectives is crucial for several reasons. First, even though there is growing evidence on global warming which has formed a consensus that ignorance of climate change can lead serious threats to financial and economic stability with many corporations not having adequately incorporated carbon into their risk management plans. Some corporations may appear to be overly optimistic about their plans and strategies when facing political and social pressures and threatened legitimacy (Elijido-Ten et al. 2010). In addition, enterprises may make unsubstantiated claims about their climate change performance, and hence, due to their lack of awareness of carbon concerns, many may not make sufficient effort to manage carbon emission and to mitigate their exposure to climate change, which may threaten the long-term sustainability. For continuing or increasing the influence and the financing of sustainability initiatives and carbon development, capital markets needs reliable information on carbon engagement, carbon management and sustainability practices through corporate disclosures.  

Second, while significant growth in sustainability reporting practices which increasingly attracts regulatory attention, the quality of information disclosed in sustainability reports is still of great concern (Kazemian et al. 2022; Perkins et al. 2022), particularly relating to the standardization in the reporting process, the absence of stakeholder involvement and the purpose of such report as tools for impression management and for green-washing. As such, assurance on sustainability reporting intermediaries has emerged to reduce information asymmetry between reporting entities and their stakeholders. Assurance providers commonly use independent experts to verify the reliability and credibility of corporate disclosures on non-financial aspects (O'Dwyer et al., 2011), and they aim to provide independent assessments of reliability, materiality, and completeness of sustainability reports in conjunction with financial disclosures (Gilbert and Rasche, 2008). However, the extant literature provides limited evidence of how related sustainability reporting assurance and carbon assurance are embedded in capital markets and how well they reveal the effectiveness of sustainability practices and carbon management (Adhikari, 2021).  

Finally, there is very little evidence on carbon management and sustainability reporting in supply chains, which has grown in prominence due to tighter community expectations and increased consumer pressure. For instance, to reduce the carbon emissions in the manufacturing process of agriculture, the Chinese government has adopted carbon tax policy to accelerate the solution of the carbon emission pollution issue which has caused irreparable damage to the environment (Liu et al., 2021). Additionally, there is an increasing global debate to find appropriate solutions on the issues of carbon leakage from exports. However, literature on sustainability in supply chain management has been limited to social and ethical issues relating to buyer-supplier relationships, particularly on the up-stream supply chain focusing on the social issues in purchasing decisions advocated by organizational stakeholders (Mani and Gunasekaran, 2018). Supply chain seeks to minimization of resources use and reduction in carbon emission, thereby optimizing values derived from its service offerings (Pagell and Wu, 2009). However, large-scale, multi-focused investigations of the reliability and the effectiveness utility of carbon management in supply chain and related sustainability reporting remains an under-researched area in the literature. 

In this special issue, authors are invited to share their research findings on issues relevant to the aforementioned themes and could include but not limited to the following broad areas:  

• Carbon emissions accounting, financing and management performance;  

• Sustainability, ESG, emissions targets and climate change impacts on accounting/financial outcomes, carbon footprint verification systems, carbon performance data supply chains and emission trading systems;  

• Carbon management auditing, assurance, governance and accountability 

• Global carbon accounting supply chains 

Submissions and review process:  

• All submissions should be made through the Emerald Editorial System for Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal using https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sampj  

• The submission deadline for receipt of papers is 31 July 2023.   
   

• Submissions must adhere to the format and style guidelines of the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal   
   

• Submissions will be subject to an initial screening by the Sustainable Accounting and Finance Conference Guest Editors and papers that fall outside the scope or which are considered unlikely to be suitable for the SAMPJ special issue will be desk rejected.  
   

• Accepted papers will undergo a typical double-blind review process.  
   

• The special issue is linked to the 5th Global Chinese Accounting Association Summit (https://gcaa.net.cn/en/), but submissions are open to authors who are not attending the conference. The Summit will be held in Guangzhou, China, from 24-25 June 2023. This conference is made possible by an Australia-China Relations Focussed Grant from the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations. We welcome academics and practitioners engaged in environmental management, climate change and low emissions accounting/auditing/finance research and practice to attend this Summit.   

Types of Submission:

We welcome high-quality submissions which advance our knowledge on the abovementioned topics. We do not favour any special theoretical perspectives or methodological approaches. The types of acceptable submissions include, but are not limited to:  

• Theoretical and empirical papers  

• Literature reviews  

• Practice or policy reviews  

• Qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods research  

• Experimental research  

• Single, multiple, large-sample case studies  

References: 

Adhikari, A., & Zhou, H. (2021). Voluntary disclosure and information asymmetry: do investors in US capital markets care about carbon emission?. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 13(1),195-220.  

Elijido-Ten, E., L. Kloot, and P. Clarkson. 2010. Extending the application of stakeholder influence strategies to environmental disclosures: An exploratory study from a developing country. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 23 (8):1032-1059. 

Gilbert, D. U., & Rasche, A. (2008). Opportunities and problems of standardized ethics initiatives–a stakeholder theory perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 82(3), 755-773. 

Gimenez, C., & Tachizawa, E. M. (2012). Extending sustainability to suppliers: a systematic literature review. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 17(5), 531-543. 

Gov UK. (2021). Fact Sheet: Net Zero-aligned Financial Centre. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fact-sheet-net-zero-aligned-financial-centre/fact-sheet-net-zero-aligned-financial-centre. 

IFRS Foundation/International Sustainability Standards Board. (2021). Climate-related Disclosure Prototype. Supplement: Technical Protocols for Disclosure Requirements. https://www.ifrs.org/content/dam/ifrs/groups/trwg/climate-related-disclosures-prototype-technical-protocols-supplement.pdf. 

IPCC. (2019). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/09/25/srocc-press-release/ 

Kazemian, S., Djajadikerta, H. G., Trireksani, T., Sohag, K., Sanusi, Z. M., & Said, J. (2022). Carbon management accounting (CMA) practices in Australia’s high carbon-emission industries. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 13(5), 1132-1168. 

Liu, Z., Lang, L., Hu, B., Shi, L., Huang, B., & Zhao, Y. (2021). Emission reduction decision of agricultural supply chain considering carbon tax and investment cooperation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 294, 126305. 

Mani, V., & Gunasekaran, A. (2018). Four forces of supply chain social sustainability adoption in emerging economies. International Journal of Production Economics, 199, 150-161. 

Maroun, W. (2017). Assuring the integrated report: Insights and recommendations from auditors and preparers. The British Accounting Review, 49(3), 329-346. 

Moser, D. V., & Martin, P. R. (2012). A broader perspective on corporate social responsibility research in accounting. The Accounting Review, 87(3), 797-806. 

O’Dwyer, B. (2011). The case of sustainability assurance: Constructing a new assurance service. Contemporary Accounting Research, 28(4), 1230-1266. 

Pagell, M., & Gobeli, D. (2009). How plant managers' experiences and attitudes toward sustainability relate to operational performance. Production and Operations Management, 18(3), 278-299. 

Perkins, J., Jeffrey, C., & Freedman, M. (2022). Cultural influences on the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosures: an examination of carbon disclosure. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 13(5), 1169-1200. 

Sancha, C., Gimenez, C., & Sierra, V. (2016). Achieving a socially responsible supply chain through assessment and collaboration. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, 1934-1947. 

Stern, N. (2006). The Stern review on the economics of climate change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

United Nations FCCC. (2021). Glasgow Climate Pact. Advance version. https://unfccc.int/documents/310508.