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This study aims to explore how large Australian companies in emission intensive industries perceived the introduction of the Carbon Tax as an approach to carbon emissions regulation and as a tool for accountability. It also investigates the influence of perceptions of the new tax on the internal carbon emissions management practices and the motivations for such actions.

This study draws on transaction cost theory and legitimacy theory to address corporate perceptions, responses and motivations in relation to the Carbon Tax. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 senior managers directly responsible for the carbon emissions management of their companies.

The study found that the Carbon Tax, viewed by the high-emitting companies as a heavy financial burden, had a significant influence on moderating organisational legitimacy seeking behaviours. It is evident that the transaction cost issues in the form of the carbon pricing requirement has led to a change of focus to “management” rather than merely reporting to external stakeholders. This influenced companies to change their behaviour with the potential to internalise previous externalities of carbon pollution.

This research highlights that a pricing signal in emissions regulations is essential in conjunction with external pressures to effectively stimulate emissions management actions in companies. It extends our understanding of legitimacy theory by suggesting that a mandatory pricing mechanism as explained by transaction cost economics has the potential to lead to actual changes in corporate behaviour through a focus on management rather than reporting.

The study highlights the important elements of any effective emissions policy designed to encourage strong emissions management actions from companies. Based on the findings of the study, it is evident that the Carbon Tax was a very effective mechanism in driving emission management actions, despite the general perception that any deficiencies associated with such a price mechanism could have a negative effect on the economy.

Climate change is a critical issue for the modern society and this study discussed a short-lived policy tool in the Australian context that had the potential to change corporate behaviour in relation to carbon management.

This study is among the very few studies that have examined the influence of the Carbon Tax on internal emissions management practices of companies, and therefore, provides a unique dataset of corporate responses to the Carbon Tax. Given the short time frame that the Carbon Tax was in operation, the study enhances our understanding of the influence the Carbon Tax had on companies responsible for high greenhouse gas emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to apply regulatory mix theory as a framework for investigating the use of management accounting techniques by Australian large listed companies in constraining their carbon emissions.

Semi-structured interviews are conducted with senior managers involved with managing their companies’ carbon emission risks. Analysis of the interview data is undertaken with a view to provision of insight to the impact of the regulatory framework imposed to deal with carbon emissions.

The findings reveal that regulation impacting companies’ economic interests rather than requiring mere disclosure compliance is much more likely to be behind focusing top management and board attention and use of management accounting techniques to set targets, measure performance and incentivise emission mitigation. However, there remains much scope for increased use of accounting professionals and accounting techniques in working towards a carbon-constrained economy.

The usual limitations associated with interpretation of interview data are applicable.

Under-use of management accounting techniques is likely to be associated with less than optimal constraint of carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions are accepted as being involved in harmful climate change. To the extent effective techniques are under-utilised in constraining emissions, harmful consequences for society are likely to be heightened unnecessarily.

The topic and data collected are original and provide valuable insights into the dynamics of management accounting technique use in managing carbon emissions.

Carbon management accounting (CMA) is one part of sustainability accounting designed to provide information for the management of carbon dioxide (CO₂) releases. Adopting the contingency framework, this paper aims to examine the contextual antecedents that influence CMA adoption in Ghanaian firms.

The paper tests seven contextual dimensions, namely, strategy, structure, size, environmental management system (EMS), decentralization, technology and perceived environmental uncertainty, on CMA adoption from a survey of 125 accountants.

Consistent with prior literature, organizational strategy, structure, environmental management accounting (EMA), firm size, technology and perceived environmental uncertainty were found to be positively associated with CMA adoption and hence support contingency theory. However, a relationship between decentralization and EMA adoption was not supported by the sample data. Also, the existence of CMA systems was found to be low in the sample firms, although more than half of the respondents have EMS.

The study is limited to Ghana hence possible generalization of the results is limited. Further exploration of contingency-based research in other emerging economies would provide valuable insights on CMA adoption and practices to contribute to the CMA literature.

The findings suggest that although CMA adoption and practices is low in the sampled firms, both contextual and environmental factors play a vital role in the adoption of CMA in developing economies, as it pertains to the generic management accounting systems. Policies governing CMA practice should incorporate organizational contextual factors.

The paper presents preliminary empirical evidence on the state of adoption and practice of CMA from an emerging economy perspective, an area which lacks empirical investigation both in the EMA and the carbon accounting domain. It draws considerable novelty on the basis that despite the growing interest in climate change-based research empirical works on CO₂ emissions conducted exclusively from management accounting perspective, and in developing economies in particular, have been scant. The paper extends the contingency theory framework from conventional practices to the EMA field.

The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant literature on low carbon supply chain management (LCSCM) and classify it on contextual base. It also aims at identifying key decision-making issues in LCSCM. This paper also highlights some of the future challenges and scope of research in this domain.

A content analysis is carried out by systematically collecting the literature from major academic sources over a period of 18 years (2000-2017), identifying structural dimensions and classifying it on contextual base.

There is an increasing trend of research on LCSCM, but this research is still in a nascent stage. All supply chain functions such as supplier selection, inventory planning, network design and logistic decisions have been redefined by integrating emissions-related issues.

Limitation of this study is inherent in its unit of analysis. Only peer-reviewed journal articles published in English language have been considered in this study.

Findings of prior studies on low carbon inventory control, transportation planning, facility allocation, location selection and supply chain coordination have been highlighted in this study. This will help supply chain practitioners in decision making.

Though there are an increasing number of studies about carbon emission-related issues in supply chain management, the present literature lacks to provide a review of the overarching publications. This paper addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive review of literature on emissions-related issues in supply chain management.

This paper aims to focus on a global consulting company and examine how it struggled to establish an effective environmental management control system for carbon emissions for its employees’ air travel. The organisation was motivated to reduce its carbon emissions both to comply with regulation and to enhance or maintain corporate reputation.

The paper takes a case study approach, examining internal and external documents as well as conducting interviews with senior staff.

The case study investigates how Beta’s management implemented a system to reduce carbon emissions. The organisation focused on air travel, but the study finds that employee travel preferences did not radically change. Rather than reduction in carbon emissions, as planned by head office, air travel carbon emissions actually increased during the period, and, as a consequence, the reported reduction targets were significantly adjusted downwards to meet the new realities.

The study has implications for both policy and practice for organisations seeking to improve their sustainability performance.

The study responds to calls in the literature to undertake research to identify how management practices might reduce negative sustainability impacts, as there is little evidence of what management practices and accounting tools are being adopted, particularly in relation to carbon emissions from air travel. The paper adds to the creation of new accounting, giving visibility to carbon emission management through case study analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate the measurement of a carbon footprint and environmental program in supply chain management.

The study uses a case study methodology and employs the qualitative methods of interviews and document analysis to collect data on Hyundai Motors Co. (HMC) and its key first‐tier supplier, referred to here as Supplier A, in the Korean automobile industry.

The results of the study show that a key strategic action to implement carbon management is to identify and measure the carbon footprint of products and processes within the supply chain. A carbon footprint measurement framework and different levels of CO₂ adoption categories developed at HMC are presented. By monitoring and evaluating suppliers' CO₂ emissions performance, a focal company may avoid carbon‐related risk and retain competitiveness based on its supply chain.

Developing a carbon footprint measurement and evaluation program in the supply chain provides a track record to improve carbon and energy efficiency. This may lead companies to develop and exploit greater energy efficiency to tackle carbon emission challenges in the supply chain.

This paper provides academics and managers with a new approach to consider carbon management and green supply chain management.

The demand to reduce carbon emissions has become an increasingly important social factor due to the unprecedented impacts of climate change. However, most existing publications have focused on minimizing emissions during the operational phase of buildings. At the same time, there is a lack of comprehensive research conducted on carbon emissions, specifically during the construction phase. The purpose of this paper is to identify, review and classify current practices related to carbon emissions management in construction operations to gain greater insight into how to reduce and mitigate emissions and achieve more sustainable solutions.

This study reviewed the published literature on carbon emissions from construction. A total of 198 bibliographic records were extracted from the Scopus collection database and analyzed using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). PRISMA is used as a basis for reporting possible trends, research methods and strategies used in published literatures. A total of 99 papers related to carbon emissions in the construction operations were further reviewed and analyzed. This review paper draws on existing research and identifies current carbon management patterns in construction projects.

Data indicated an upward trend in the number of publications in carbon emissions research during the last few years, particularly in 2015, 2017 and 2019. The most significant contributions to the domain were reported from China, Europe and the USA. This paper found that most studies conduct the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method to estimate carbon emissions. This paper found that the primary studies have focused on construction machinery and equipment emissions. The strategies such as establishing uniform standards for carbon emissions policies and regulations, equipment and logistic planning and low carbon design material will potentially impact carbon emissions reductions.

This paper provides information that will be beneficial for the construction industry to design and manage construction operations. It will also be of interest to those looking to reduce or manage construction emissions.

Although there is a diversity of current thinking related to the practical estimation and management of carbon emissions in construction projects, there is no consolidated set of keys of standardized carbon emissions management in practice. By assessing the existing paradigms of carbon assessment methods and tactics in the construction industry, this study contributed to the existing knowledge base by providing insights into current techniques in the construction sector for monitoring and mitigating emissions.

This study examines how carbon tools, including carbon accounting and management tools, can be created, used, modified and linked with other traditional management controls to materialise and effectuate organisations’ response strategies to multiple interacting logics in carbon management and the role of sustainability managers in these processes.

This study utilises the construct of accounting toolmaking, which refers to practices of adopting, adjusting and reconfiguring accounting tools to unfold how carbon tools are used as means to materialise responses to multiple interacting carbon management logics. It embraces a field study approach, whereby 38 sustainability managers and staff from 30 organisations in New Zealand were interviewed.

This study finds that carbon toolmaking is an important means to materialise and effectuate organisations’ response strategies to multiple interacting carbon management logics. Four response strategies are identified: separation, selective coupling, combination and hybridisation. Adopting activity involves considering the additionality, detailing, localising and cascading of carbon measures and targets and their linkage to the broader carbon management programme. In adjusting carbon tools, organisations adapt the frequency and orientation of carbon reporting, intensity of carbon monitoring and breadth of carbon information sharing. Through focusing on either procedural sequencing, assimilating, equating or integrating, toolmaking reconfigures the relationship between carbon tools and traditional management control systems. Together, these three toolmaking activities can be configured differently to construct carbon tools that are fit for purpose for each response strategy. These activities also enact certain roles on sustainability managers in the process of representing, communicating and/or transferring carbon information knowledge, which also facilitate different response strategies.

The study demonstrates the various carbon toolmaking practices that allow organisations to handle the multiple interacting logics in carbon management. The findings provide suggestions for organisations on how to adopt, adjust and reconfigure carbon tools to better embed the ecological logic in organisations’ strategies and operations.

The authors identify how carbon toolmaking materialises and effectuates organisations’ responses to multiple interacting logics in carbon management.

Drawing on the theory of contingency, the aim of this work is to understand how supply chain-related contingencies, arising from climate change, are related to changes in the organisational structure of firms. Further, the authors explore how this relationship influences the perception of sustainability managers on the adoption of low-carbon operations management practices and their related benefits.

To achieve this goal, this research uses NVivo software to gather evidence from interviews conducted with ten high-level managers in sustainability and related areas from seven leading companies located in Brazil.

The authors present four primary results: a proposal of an original framework to understand the relationship between contingency theory, changes in organisational structure to embrace low-carbon management, adoption of low-carbon operations practices and benefits from this process; the discovery that an adequate low-carbon management structure is vital to improve the organisations’ perceptions of potential benefits from a low-carbon strategy; low-carbon management initiatives tend to emerge from an organisation’s existing environmental management systems; and controlling and monitoring climate contingencies at the supply chain level should be permanent and systematic.

Based on the knowledge of the authors, to date, this work is the first piece of research that deals with the complexity of putting together contingency theory, climate-change contingencies at the supply chain level, organisational structure for low-carbon management and low-carbon operations management practices and benefits. This research also highlights evidence from an emerging economy and registers future research propositions.

Institutional governance theory is used to explain voluntary corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting in the context of a market governance system in the absence of climate change public policy. This paper seeks to hypothesise that GHG reporting is related to internal organisation systems, external privately promulgated guidance and EU ETS trading.

A two‐stage approach is used. The initial model examines whether firms' GHG disclosures are associated with internal organisation systems factors: environmental management systems (EMS), corporate governance quality and environmental management committees as well as external private guidance provided by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for 187 ASX 300 firms. EU ETS trading is also included. Determinants of the extent and credibility of GHG disclosure is examined in the second stage where an index constructed from the GHG reporting standard “ISO 14064‐1” items for a sub‐sample of 80 disclosing firms as the dependent variable.

Firms that voluntarily disclose GHGs have EMSs (uncertified and certified), higher corporate governance quality and publicly report to the CDP, tend to be large and in the energy and mining and industrial sectors. The credibility and extent of disclosures are related to the existence of a certified EMS, public reporting to the CDP, and use of the GRI. Firms that disclose more credible information are more likely to be large and in the energy and mining, industrial and services sectors.

The paper shows that some proactive but pragmatic Australian firms are disclosing their GHGs voluntarily for competitive advantage in the current market governance system in the absence of public policy.