{"title":"A slow and deceitful path to decarbonization? Critically assessing corporate climate disclosure as central tool of soft climate governance","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2024.103704","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Companies increasingly disclose climate information via voluntary frameworks and emerging mandatory reporting regimes. However, corporations remain large contributors to the increase of global CO2 emissions. Researchers have identified major flaws in corporate climate reporting, yet a more fundamental critique is necessary to understand climate reporting's potential and limitations for decarbonizing the economy. The dominant approach in current polycentric, multi-level, and transnational climate governance is soft climate governance. This article presents a critical discussion of disclosure as a tool of soft climate governance and argues that a climate disclosure regime has spread across the global economy. Though subtle and hard to grasp, this regime is powerful in normalizing corporate climate disclosure across countries and industries. It constitutes a distinct social construction and offers companies two resources: a business-compatible theory of change and a structured climate governance approach. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of ten companies from Germany, Brazil, and the United States, this article conceptualizes climate disclosure as a formalized practice of valuation. While successful in translating climate change into business language, the climate disclosure regime currently does not enable a rapid transformation of the economy. The article offers an innovative explanation for the limited effects of climate disclosure on reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but avoids a destructive critique that dismisses climate disclosure as mere greenwashing activity. Simultaneously, it counters naïve illusions that more transparency, better standards, and the right performance indicators will solve the “wicked problem” of climate change.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629624002950/pdfft?md5=3f5ccb9f268a5da2ea6ce8998aff8ff4&pid=1-s2.0-S2214629624002950-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Energy Research & Social Science","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629624002950","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Companies increasingly disclose climate information via voluntary frameworks and emerging mandatory reporting regimes. However, corporations remain large contributors to the increase of global CO2 emissions. Researchers have identified major flaws in corporate climate reporting, yet a more fundamental critique is necessary to understand climate reporting's potential and limitations for decarbonizing the economy. The dominant approach in current polycentric, multi-level, and transnational climate governance is soft climate governance. This article presents a critical discussion of disclosure as a tool of soft climate governance and argues that a climate disclosure regime has spread across the global economy. Though subtle and hard to grasp, this regime is powerful in normalizing corporate climate disclosure across countries and industries. It constitutes a distinct social construction and offers companies two resources: a business-compatible theory of change and a structured climate governance approach. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of ten companies from Germany, Brazil, and the United States, this article conceptualizes climate disclosure as a formalized practice of valuation. While successful in translating climate change into business language, the climate disclosure regime currently does not enable a rapid transformation of the economy. The article offers an innovative explanation for the limited effects of climate disclosure on reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but avoids a destructive critique that dismisses climate disclosure as mere greenwashing activity. Simultaneously, it counters naïve illusions that more transparency, better standards, and the right performance indicators will solve the “wicked problem” of climate change.
期刊介绍:
Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS) is a peer-reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles examining the relationship between energy systems and society. ERSS covers a range of topics revolving around the intersection of energy technologies, fuels, and resources on one side and social processes and influences - including communities of energy users, people affected by energy production, social institutions, customs, traditions, behaviors, and policies - on the other. Put another way, ERSS investigates the social system surrounding energy technology and hardware. ERSS is relevant for energy practitioners, researchers interested in the social aspects of energy production or use, and policymakers.
Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS) provides an interdisciplinary forum to discuss how social and technical issues related to energy production and consumption interact. Energy production, distribution, and consumption all have both technical and human components, and the latter involves the human causes and consequences of energy-related activities and processes as well as social structures that shape how people interact with energy systems. Energy analysis, therefore, needs to look beyond the dimensions of technology and economics to include these social and human elements.