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Multinational enterprises (MNEs) own and control technological resources and capabilities that make them critical actors in accelerating the transition toward net zero. Even beyond the energy sector, stakeholders are putting increasing pressure on MNEs to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations, that is, to improve their carbon performance. While there is unambiguous evidence that national climate policy is a critical catalyst for long-term carbon performance improvements, there is limited research on how MNEs’ carbon strategies react to climate policies. This chapter reviews the concepts, drivers, and strategies connected to carbon performance in the broader sustainability and management literature to clarify potential complementarities to international business (IB). The authors then highlight how MNEs will face increasing institutional complexity along two dimensions: (1) the structural diversity of institutional environments and (2) institutional dynamism, primarily reflected by public policy. The proposed conceptual framework maps these two dimensions to national and subnational levels, and the authors present two data sources that allow the quantitative analysis of country differences in the diversity and dynamism of national climate policy. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities for IB researchers to explore MNEs’ strategic reactions to climate policy and to inform policymakers about the consequences of national climate policy in the global economy.

Prefabricated buildings (PBs) have proven to effectively mitigate carbon emissions in the construction industry. Existing studies have analyzed the environmental performance of PBs considering the shift in construction methods, ignoring the emissions abatement effects of the low-carbon practices adopted by participants in the prefabricated building supply chain (PBSC). Thus, it is challenging to exploit the environmental advantages of PBs. To further reveal the carbon reduction potential of PBs and assist participants in making low-carbon practice strategy decisions, this paper constructs a system dynamics (SD) model to explore the performance of PBSC in low-carbon practices.

This study adopts the SD approach to integrate the complex dynamic relationship between variables and explicitly considers the environmental and economic impacts of PBSC to explore the carbon emission reduction effects of low-carbon practices by enterprises under environmental policies from the supply chain perspective.

Results show that with the advance of prefabrication level, the carbon emissions from production and transportation processes increase, and the total carbon emissions of PBSC show an upward trend. Low-carbon practices of rational transportation route planning and carbon-reduction energy investment can effectively reduce carbon emissions with negative economic impacts on transportation enterprises. The application of sustainable materials in low-carbon practices is both economically and environmentally friendly. In addition, carbon tax does not always promote the implementation of low-carbon practices, and the improvement of enterprises' environmental awareness can further strengthen the effect of low-carbon practices.

This study dynamically assesses the carbon reduction effects of low-carbon practices in PBSC, informing the low-carbon decision-making of participants in building construction projects and guiding the government to formulate environmental policies.

Construction professionals are the major contributors to developing a sustainable construction industry, whereas architects, engineers and quantity surveyors are the key construction professionals who must play extraordinary roles in achieving better sustainable construction. Therefore, this study aims to identify the job attributes of key Sri Lankan construction professionals in addressing challenges associated with climate change.

The study adopted a mixed research approach. A literature review and preliminary semi-structured interviews were used to appraise the job roles of architects, engineers and quantity surveyors in addressing challenges associated with climate change. The data collected through the qualitative approach were used in an online questionnaire survey, and the findings were analysed using the relative index method.

The findings highlight that regardless of the knowledge of the professional category on green rating tools, carbon footprint, adaptation of renewable energies for the reduction of energy consumption, building information modelling-related applications and waste management concepts/practices are the foremost job attributes required for the key Sri Lankan construction professionals in addressing challenges associated with climate change.

The results from this study provide a handful of guidance to construction industry professionals, national and international professional institutions, non-governmental organisations and other relevant authorities to address climate change within the built environment by identifying ways for improving the relevant key job attributes of construction industry professionals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explores the job attributes of key Sri Lankan construction professionals in addressing the challenges associated with climate change.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between carbon emissions and earnings management (EM). This study also considers the effect of female CEOs on the association between carbon emissions and EM.

This study uses the carbon disclosure project (CDP) for carbon emissions data, the Compustat database for financial information and the ExecuComp database for female CEOs. The empirical sample of this study consists of 1,692 firm-year observations in the USA that voluntarily participated in the CDP survey from 2007 to 2015. Regression analysis and robustness tests are conducted for this study and both accrual and real EM are considered.

This study provides evidence that firms with female CEOs who voluntarily disclose their carbon emissions information engage in less real EM. Thus, the presence of female CEOs moderates the association between carbon emissions and EM. This study/paper also finds a positive association between carbon emissions and real EM, although there is an insignificant association between carbon emissions and accruals EM.

The association between carbon emissions and EM has important implications for investors, regulators and policymakers. This study suggests that policymakers should improve the conditions that promote inclusion of females in the top management positions to constrain EM.

This study focuses on the USA, which is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions in the world. The presence of female CEOs moderates the association between carbon emissions and EM and firms with female CEOs show a greater impact on EM.

Understanding the role of corporate strategies in sustainability has become a hot topic for scholarly research. Meanwhile, firms strive to innovate and shape their positive image in the contemporary business arena. Past research has ignored investigating whether and how sustainability-oriented corporate strategies could drive innovation and firm image among external stakeholders. To address the said research gap, this paper examines the path through which sustainability-oriented corporate strategy and environmental regulation improve green corporate image and green innovation capabilities (i.e. green process and product innovation).

This study adopted a quantitative survey-based method. The online survey was adopted to collect data from employees working at the managerial level in the equipment manufacturing sector. The data collected from 343 managers that was complete in all aspects was used for empirical analysis using structural equation modeling. Direct and indirect relations were evaluated.

The findings reveal that sustainability-oriented corporate strategy and environmental regulation drive green innovation and green corporate image. Findings further show that external knowledge adoption underpins these effects of sustainability-oriented corporate strategy and environmental regulation.

The study delivers theoretical and practical understandings of the importance of sustainability-oriented corporate strategies to green corporate image and green innovation capabilities.

The emission of greenhouse gases has become an increasingly relevant topic in supply chain management. The steel industry is a highly intensive manufacturing industry with significant emission levels, particularly Scope 3 emissions, which are the indirect emissions from suppliers. Since a supply chain is seen as a non-mandatory measurement item within GHG measurement protocols, this article contributes to the literature on assessing the suppliers of a focal company relative to their emissions for complying with Scope 3 (indirect emissions). It adds to the evolving literature on low-carbon supply chains.

This study first conducted a survey with 110 suppliers from a focal transnational buyer company. A cluster analysis was performed, and ANOVA compared constructs relating to public or private ownership and country of origin. Finally, regression tested the relationship between the motivators and governance in the mitigation strategies.

Using cluster analysis, two groups of companies were found that have statistically significant differences. The influence of the country of origin was also found in relation to governance and mitigation strategies, as was the influence of the type of company on governance. Furthermore, the more motivated the suppliers and the more governance measures they adopt, the more companies adopt their own GHG mitigation strategies. These findings are summarized by way of an analytical framework that integrates the constructs with empirical evidence.

The steel industry is a sector that is particularly energy-intensive and produces millions of tons of CO₂ per year. Emissions from its SC (Scope 3) are relevant but still seen as a non-mandatory item for measurement purposes within the GHG measurement protocols, which leads to less attention being paid to the subject. This study contributes by way of its analytical framework that is validated by empirical data that can be tested in further studies.

This study aims to examine the relationship between financial development (FD), financial risk, green finance and innovation related to carbon emissions in the G7 economies.

This quantitative study examines the roles that financial development [FD: Domestic credit to private sector by banks as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)], economic growth (GDP: Constant US$ 2015), financial risk index (FRI), green finance (GFIN: Renewable energy public research development and demonstration (RD&D) budget as percentage of total RD&D budget), development of environment-related technologies (DERTI: percentage of all technologies) and human capital (HCI: index) have on the environmental quality of developed economies. Based on panel data, the study uses a novel approach method of moments quantile regression as a main method to tackle the issue of cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity and nonnormality of the data.

The study confirms that increasing economic development increases emissions and negatively impacts the environment. However, efficient resource allocation, improved financial systems, and green innovation are likely to contribute to emission mitigation and the overall development of a sustainable viable economy. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of risk management in financial systems for future emissions prevention.

The study uses a reliable estimation procedure, which extends the discussion on climate policy from a COP-27 perspective and offers practical implications for policymakers in developing more effective emission mitigation strategies.

The study offers policy suggestions for a sustainable economy, focusing on both COP-27 and the G7 countries. Recommendations include implementing carbon pricing, developing carbon capture and storage technologies, investing in renewables and energy efficiency and introducing financial instruments for emission mitigation. From a COP-27 standpoint, the G7 should prioritize transitioning to low-carbon economies and supporting developing nations in their sustainability efforts to address the pressing challenges of climate change and global warming.

In comparison to the literature, this study examines the importance of financial risk for G7 economies in promoting a sustainable environment. More specifically, in the context of FD and national income with carbon emissions, previous researchers have disregarded the importance of green innovation and human capital, so the current study fills the gap in the literature related to G7 economies by exploring the link between the identified variables related to carbon emissions.

This study aims to investigate low-carbon footprint travel choices, considering both destination attributes and climate change perceptions, and examine the impacts of nudging (a communication tool to alter individuals’ choices in a predictable way) on tourists’ preferences for carbon mitigation in destinations.

A discrete choice experiment questionnaire was administered to a sample of 958 Hong Kong respondents. Hybrid choice modeling was used to examine the respondents’ preferences for destination attributes and to explain preference heterogeneity using tourists’ climate change perceptions. The respondents’ willingness to pay for the destination attributes was also calculated to measure the monetary value of the attributes.

Destination type, carbon emissions and travel cost had significant effects on tourists’ choices of destination. Nudging increased tourists’ preference for low-carbon footprint choices. Tourists with higher climate change perceptions were more likely than others to select low-carbon destinations with carbon offset projects.

The findings of this study provide an impetus for destination management organizations to support local carbon offset projects, implement policies that mitigate carbon emissions and develop sustainable tourism to fulfill tourists’ demand for low-carbon footprint travel choices. Based on the findings, policymakers could promote sustainable tourism by publishing relevant climate change information on social media.

This study addressed a gap in the literature on tourist travel choice by considering carbon emission-related attributes and climate change perceptions and by confirming the role of nudging in increasing the choice of low-carbon destinations.

This study investigated the visibility of carbon emissions allowances accounting in the financial reports of 32 clean development mechanism (CDM) projects in the UAE to uncover the obstacles to setting consistent standards for carbon emission accounting. As carbon emissions are monetized as credits, consistent accounting standards can aid decision-makers in the development of carbon emission mitigation strategies.

This study used a grounded theoretical framework for exploring the terms used in the policy documents of international accounting bodies regarding accounting standards and guidelines for carbon emission credits. Raw qualitative data were gathered, and an inductive approach was used by analyzing documents from various sources using the qualitative data text analysis software QDA Miner 6.

The findings showed that the financial statement reports of the corporations did not include disclosure of the carbon credit account. This omission was due to the lack of global standardization of carbon credit accounts and emission allowance recognition. This may hinder the production of a comprehensive report containing accurate and valuable financial information relevant to all stakeholders.

The study is among the first to use a grounded theoretical framework to investigate whether corporations are applying common standards and guidelines for carbon emissions accounting.

We conduct a multidisciplinary systematic literature review on climate neutrality in the supply chain. While carbon neutrality has gained prominence, our study argues that achieving carbon neutrality alone is not enough to address climate change effectively, as non-CO₂ greenhouse gases (GHG) are potent contributors to global warming.

We used multiple databases, including EBSCO, ProQuest, Science Direct, Emerald and Google Scholar, to identify articles related to climate neutrality in the context of non-CO₂ gases. A total of 71 articles in environmental science, climate change, energy systems, agriculture and logistics are reviewed to provide insights into the climate neutrality of supply chains.

We find that, in addition to CO₂, other GHG such as methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and fluorinated gases also significantly contribute to climate change. Our literature review identified several key pillars for achieving net-zero GHG emissions, including end-use efficiency and electrification, clean electricity supply, clean fuel supply, “GHG capture, storage and utilization,” enhanced land sinks, reduced non-CO₂ emissions and improved feed and manure management.

We contribute to the literature on climate neutrality of supply chains by emphasizing the significance of non-CO₂ GHG along with CO₂ and highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to climate neutrality in addressing climate change. This study advances the understanding of climate neutrality of supply chains and contributes to the discourse on effective climate change mitigation strategies. It provides clear future research directions.