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- March 2024
- Article
Establishing the Foundation for Carbon Trading Markets
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston
Poor measurement practices and inadequate controls have led to extensive trading of carbon offset instruments that do not materially reduce the supply of atmospheric GHG. We introduce five carbon offset accounting principles, built from fundamental financial-accounting... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Offsetting; Accounting; Carbon Accounting; E-liabilities; Measurement; Trading; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Sustainability
Kaplan, Robert S., Karthik Ramanna, and Marc Roston. "Establishing the Foundation for Carbon Trading Markets." Accountability in a Sustainable World Quarterly 2, no. 2 (March 2024): 48–57.
- July–August 2023
- Article
Accounting for Carbon Offsets
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston
Markets for carbon trading function poorly, and many traded offsets do not actually perform as promised. Without robust protocols for monitoring offsets and in the absence of proper accounting mechanisms, market-based approaches to reducing atmospheric GHG will be... View Details
Kaplan, Robert S., Karthik Ramanna, and Marc Roston. "Accounting for Carbon Offsets." Harvard Business Review 101, no. 4 (July–August 2023): 126–137.
- 2023
- Working Paper
Toward Decision-Useful Carbon Information
By: Gunther Glenk
Companies are increasingly viewed as crucial drivers for timely decarbonization. Current accounting practices for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, however, often leave corporate carbon disclosures and abatement obscured. Here I introduce a taxonomy for assuring the... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Decarbonization; Carbon Accounting; Net-zero Emissions; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Environment; Environmental Impact; Management; Sustainable Cities; Corporate Disclosure; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Management; Climate Change; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Accounting Industry; Europe; North America; South America; Africa; Asia
Glenk, Gunther. "Toward Decision-Useful Carbon Information." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-026, September 2023. (TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency Working Paper Series, No. 121, May 2023.)
- December 15, 2023
- Article
What Every Leader Needs to Know About Carbon Credits
By: Varsha Ramesh Walsh and Michael W. Toffel
Many companies have begun to look into credits to offset their emissions as a way to support their net zero goals as their target years get closer and closer. As it stands, the carbon credit market is too small to bear the brunt of reducing companies’ impacts on the... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Credits; Climate; Accounting; Carbon Offsetting; Carbon Abatement; Carbon Emissions; Carbon Footprint; Climate Change; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Regulation
Ramesh Walsh, Varsha, and Michael W. Toffel. "What Every Leader Needs to Know About Carbon Credits." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (December 15, 2023).
- 2023
- Working Paper
Accounting for Carbon Offsets – Establishing the Foundation for Carbon-Trading Markets
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston
Tackling climate change requires reductions in current and future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as the removal of existing GHG from the atmosphere. Carbon-offset producers purport to provide such removals. But poor measurement practices and inadequate controls... View Details
Kaplan, Robert S., Karthik Ramanna, and Marc Roston. "Accounting for Carbon Offsets – Establishing the Foundation for Carbon-Trading Markets." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 23-050, February 2023.
- Article
We Need Better Carbon Accounting. Here's How to Get There.
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
Any effective system of greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting needs to measure each company’s supply-chain carbon impacts accurately. Such information would provide visibility and incentives for the company to make more climate-friendly product-specification and purchasing... View Details
Keywords: Accounting; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; GHG; Carbon Accounting; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Supply Chain
Kaplan, Robert S., and Karthik Ramanna. "We Need Better Carbon Accounting. Here's How to Get There." Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (April 12, 2022).
- June 2011 (Revised February 2024)
- Background Note
Carbon Footprints: Methods and Calculations
By: Michael W. Toffel, Stephanie van Sice and Kelsey Carter
Describes methods to calculate the carbon footprint (greenhouse gas emissions) of an organization's operations and supply chain, and a product or service. Illustrates concepts with examples of calculating the carbon footprint of organizations and products. Provides... View Details
Keywords: Measurement; Climate Change; Climate Impact; Carbon Accounting; Carbon Footprint; Carbon Emissions; Sustainability; Environmental Management; Operations; Supply Chain; Pollutants; Measurement and Metrics; Environmental Sustainability
Toffel, Michael W., Stephanie van Sice, and Kelsey Carter. "Carbon Footprints: Methods and Calculations." Harvard Business School Background Note 611-075, June 2011. (Revised February 2024.)
- July 2022
- Case
FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (Abridged)
In the midst of increasing press scrutiny of the bottled water industry’s environmentally harmful practices, FIJI Water made a series of sustainability promises. The boldest of these was a pledge to go “carbon negative.” The company said that not only would they offset... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Footprint; Carbon Offsetting; Environmental Accounting; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Pollution; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Non-Governmental Organizations; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; Fiji; United States
Toffel, Michael W., George Serafeim, Francesca Gino, Stephanie Van Sice, and Tom Quinn. "FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 623-004, July 2022.
- Article
Update on E-liability Accounting
By: Robert Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Piyush Jha
Since publication of the original E-liability carbon accounting paper (HBR, Nov 2021), we created the E-liability Institute to help companies, governments, and nonprofits implement the method. The Institute’s mission is to test and validate the method, and develop... View Details
Keywords: Decarbonization; Carbon Footprint; Supply Chain; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Accounting
Kaplan, Robert, Karthik Ramanna, and Piyush Jha. "Update on E-liability Accounting." Accountability in a Sustainable World Quarterly, no. 4 (September 2023): 96–117.
- September 2012
- Background Note
Carbon Credits
By: Forest Reinhardt, Jost Hamschmidt and Mikell Hyman
- 2022
- Case
Can Salesforce Compete in the Carbon Accounting Market?
By: Andrew J. Hoffman
This case describes Salesforce's development of Sustainability Cloud, a suite of software tools built to help companies measure, track, and report carbon emissions and other sustainability metrics. The goal of this case is to provide students with a background and... View Details
Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Applications and Software
Hoffman, Andrew J. "Can Salesforce Compete in the Carbon Accounting Market?" William Davidson Institute Case 6-796-717, 2022.
- 2022
- Working Paper
Machine Learning Models for Prediction of Scope 3 Carbon Emissions
By: George Serafeim and Gladys Vélez Caicedo
For most organizations, the vast amount of carbon emissions occur in their supply chain and in the post-sale processing, usage, and end of life treatment of a product, collectively labelled scope 3 emissions. In this paper, we train machine learning algorithms on 15... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Climate Change; Environment; Carbon Accounting; Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence; Digital; Data Science; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Management; Environmental Accounting
Serafeim, George, and Gladys Vélez Caicedo. "Machine Learning Models for Prediction of Scope 3 Carbon Emissions." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-080, June 2022.
- January 2023
- Case
EKI Energy Services: One Billion Carbon Credits
By: George Serafeim
Within nine months from the time of its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April of 2021, EKI Energy Services (EKI) shares had increased by more than 8,000%. Equally explosive was the growth of the company’s revenues and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Depreciation... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Credits; Carbon Emissions; Growth; Business Analysis; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Valuation; Climate Change; Accounting; Valuation; Transition; Renewable Energy; Analysis; Product Positioning; India
Serafeim, George. "EKI Energy Services: One Billion Carbon Credits." Harvard Business School Case 123-060, January 2023.
- 2021
- Working Paper
Science-Based Carbon Emissions Targets
By: David Freiberg, Jody Grewal and George Serafeim
We examine the effect of voluntarily adopting a standard for setting science-based carbon emissions targets on target difficulty and investments to achieve those targets. We find that firms with a track record of setting and achieving ambitious carbon targets are more... View Details
Keywords: Target; Targeting; Target-setting; Target Efficiency; Management Control Systems; Management Accounting; Environment; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Climate Change; Environmental Management; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Sustainability; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques
Freiberg, David, Jody Grewal, and George Serafeim. "Science-Based Carbon Emissions Targets." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-108, March 2021.
- Forthcoming
- Article
Limited Accountability and Awareness of Corporate Emissions Target Outcomes
By: Xiaoyan Jiang, Shawn Kim and Shirley Lu
Firms are increasingly announcing targets to reduce their carbon emissions, but it is unclear whether firms are held accountable for these targets. Here we examine emissions targets that ended in 2020 to investigate the final target outcomes, the transparency of target... View Details
Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Goals and Objectives; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Accountability; Environmental Sustainability; Public Opinion
Jiang, Xiaoyan, Shawn Kim, and Shirley Lu. "Limited Accountability and Awareness of Corporate Emissions Target Outcomes." Nature Climate Change (forthcoming). (Pre-published online January 21, 2025.)
- September 2016
- Article
The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions
By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim
Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Target-setting; Management Accounting; Management Accounting And Control Systems; Control Systems; Sustainable Development; Environment; Goals and Objectives; Climate Change; Management Systems; Accounting; Environmental Sustainability
Ioannou, Ioannis, Shelley Xin Li, and George Serafeim. "The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions." Accounting Review 91, no. 5 (September 2016): 1467–1492.
- 2022
- Case
Interface: The Journey Toward Carbon Negative
By: Andrew J. Hoffman
Interface has been a leading innovator in the carpet industry, specializing in the manufacturing of carpet tiles for commercial flooring. This case describes the history, context, and technology behind the company's development of its newest sustainable... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Innovation and Invention; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Accounting
Hoffman, Andrew J. "Interface: The Journey Toward Carbon Negative." William Davidson Institute Case 2-341-083, 2022.
- December 2022
- Technical Note
Risks and Opportunities from the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy: A Business Analysis Framework
By: George Serafeim
The transition to a low carbon economy introduces many risks and opportunities for businesses. Risks emerge from regulatory actions, such as carbon taxes and cap and trade systems, technological innovation that develop alternatives for customers making existing... View Details
Keywords: Risk Assessment; Opportunities; Environmental Sustainability; Carbon Footprint; Risk Management; Competitive Dynamics; Business Analysis; Climate Change; Accounting; Finance; Valuation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Technological Innovation; Transition; Product Positioning; Renewable Energy; Analysis
Serafeim, George. "Risks and Opportunities from the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy: A Business Analysis Framework." Harvard Business School Technical Note 123-014, December 2022.
- 2023
- Working Paper
Cost-Efficient Decarbonization of Portland Cement Production
By: Gunther Glenk, Anton Kelnhofer, Rebecca Meier and Stefan Reichelstein
Accounting for nearly 8% of global annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is considered difficult to decarbonize. While a sizeable number of abatement levers for Portland cement production is becoming technologically ready for deployment, many are... View Details
Keywords: Decarbonization; Carbon Abatement; Carbon Accounting; Carbon Emissions; Carbon Regulation; Carbon Tax; Net-zero Emissions; Management; Environmental Management; Sustainable Cities; Accounting; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Environmental Accounting; Energy; Environmental Sustainability; Construction Industry; Steel Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Real Estate Industry; Consulting Industry; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Utilities Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Europe; North America; South America; Africa; Asia
Glenk, Gunther, Anton Kelnhofer, Rebecca Meier, and Stefan Reichelstein. "Cost-Efficient Decarbonization of Portland Cement Production." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-025, October 2023. (TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency Working Paper Series, No. 120, May 2023.)