Journal of Cleaner Production: Wei Qian, Jacob H Orisch, Stefan Schaltegger

Journal of Cleaner Production 174 (2018) 1608e1619
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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Environmental management accounting and its effects on carbon

management and disclosure quality
Wei Qian a, *, Jacob Ho
€risch b, Stefan Schaltegger b
a
Centre for Sustainability Governance (CSG), School of Commerce University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
b
Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM) Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Along with the development of environmental management accounting (EMA) in the past decade, a
Received 10 December 2016 variety of management accounting and control tools have been designed and implemented to improve
Received in revised form the measurement and management of corporate environmental performance and information. While the
2 November 2017
importance of EMA to corporate sustainability has been increasingly acknowledged, extant literature has
Accepted 13 November 2017
Available online 13 November 2017
drawn little attention on assessing and understanding EMA application and its effectiveness on the
quality of carbon emission management and disclosure. Using data gathered of 114 large firms in the US,
Germany, Australia and Japan, we find that many firms have applied some EMA tools, yet only a few have
Keywords:
Environmental management accounting
applied the full range of EMA tools. The empirical analysis reveals that EMA application has a signifi-
Environmental accounting cantly positive impact on both corporate carbon management and disclosure quality. Further analysis
Carbon disclosure specifies that audit and benchmarking tools as well as control tools have significant effects on carbon
Carbon management management and disclosure, while for measurement tools no significant effects could be observed. Based
Sustainability management on the results, implications are developed for management education and practitioners, which can help
managers to make better informed choices for the application of EMA tools.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction (Hansen and Schaltegger, 2016), have been designed and increas-
ingly implemented to reduce the environmental impacts of com-
The annual Earth Overshoot Day marks the day on which human panies. While the focus of previous environmental and social
induced pollution exceeds the carrying capacity the earth provides accounting and reporting research is predominantly on environ-
for a given year. Constantly, this day is reached far before the end of mental disclosure (Parker, 2005; Schaltegger et al., 2013), EMA has
the year and the overshoot increases each year (Posthuma et al., been increasingly used and investigated as a company-internal
2014; Worland, 2015). Carbon and other greenhouse gas emis- approach to support the quality of environmental management in
sions are one of the main drivers of this overshoot and large cor- corporate practice (Adams, 2002; Burritt et al., 2002). It has been
porations are the main emitters of greenhouse gases, both acknowledged that EMA can play a significant role in spurring
historically, but also at present (CDP, 2013; Heede et al., 2014). operational as well as organisational change towards reducing
To measure environmental impacts including carbon emissions, corporate environmental impacts (Bennett et al., 2003; Ferreira
environmental management accounting (EMA) has received et al., 2010; Masanet-Llodra, 2006).
growing attention for the past decades (e.g., Christ and Burritt, More recently, the usefulness of EMA has been explored and
2013; Ferreira et al., 2010; Gibson and Martin, 2004; Passetti discussed in the context of corporate carbon management and
et al., 2014; Schaltegger and Burritt, 2000) and a variety of EMA accounting (Ascui, 2014; Burritt et al., 2011; Schaltegger and
tools such as material flow cost accounting (Christ and Burritt, Csutora, 2012; Stechemesser and Günther, 2012). Governments
2015; Strobel and Redmann, 2002), eco-control (Henri and around the world have attempted to drive corporate responses to
Journeault, 2010) and the sustainability balanced scorecard climate change through the introduction of emission trading
schemes and/or taxes, abatement and disclosure regulation that
aim to reduce carbon emissions. Under the current European
Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), carbon pricing or other related
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (W. Qian), [email protected] carbon reduction mechanisms, it has become increasingly impor-
€risch), [email protected] (S. Schaltegger).
(J. Ho tant for corporations to account for carbon emissions (Bell, 2017;
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.092
0959-6526/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Qian et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 174 (2018) 1608e1619 1609
Bowen and Wittneben, 2011; Engels, 2009; King, 2014; Qian and results as well as its research limitations and future research
Schaltegger, 2017). The expectation that a first step towards opportunities.
reducing corporate carbon emissions is to improve transparency
and disclosure of such emissions, has led to the establishment of 2. Review of EMA development and application
initiatives such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The CDP
collects and publishes (voluntary) disclosure of the greenhouse gas 2.1. Development of EMA
emissions of the world's largest corporations.
While business managers may have learnt about the importance Conventional accounting focuses predominantly on profitability
of EMA and applied this knowledge for carbon management or and ignores other major business impacts such as climate change,
reporting, practical questions remain under-researched, e.g. which the use of non-renewable resources or other environmental issues
groups of EMA tools are useful to reduce carbon emissions effec- as well as societal issues in supply chains. The unconsidered
tively, and more specifically, whether the application of different negative environmental and social impacts have motivated re-
EMA tools has an effect on corporate carbon management and searchers to criticize conventional accounting and made environ-
disclosure. Despite insightful suggestions provided, previous EMA mental management accounting (and more broadly social,
research is primarily either conceptual/descriptive, or focused on environmental and sustainability accounting) rise to prominence in
technical issues in EMA application through single or several case recent years (e.g. Schaltegger et al., 2013). Differentiating itself from
studies (e.g. in Ascui's 2014 review of carbon accounting develop- conventional accounting, EMA highlights the importance of tracing,
ment in social and environmental accounting literature, most of the managing and reporting ‘full’, ‘total’ or ‘true’ costs and impacts of
65 carbon accounting papers are conceptual with technical orien- business activities that conventional accounting often overlooks
tation on method development or representing case study experi- (Bebbington et al., 2001; Bracci and Maran, 2013; Epstein, 1996;
mentation). Different from reporting and other technical or more Ferreira, 2004; Herbohn, 2005; Jasch, 2009; USEPA, 1998). In
general sustainability management tools, such as life-cycle essence, EMA helps organizations to capture both economic and
assessment and eco-efficiency analysis, that have been exten- ecological footprints and to examine the entire operation of their
sively studied in previous literature (Hellweg and Canals, 2014; corporations including the supply chains as an activity with both
Scipioni et al., 2010), EMA, as a package of useful accounting economic and ecological impacts (Bartolomeo et al., 2000; Bennett
tools, has not been investigated in the context of carbon disclosure et al., 2002; UNDSD, 2001). To achieve this ultimate goal, business
and management. Research has so far paid little attention to has to employ an environmental management system, including
assessing the effectiveness of EMA application on the management EMA, to record, analyse and report environmentally induced
and disclosure of corporate carbon emissions. financial and ecological impacts of a defined economic system (e.g.,
Against this background, this study focuses on the use of EMA as a firm, plant, region, nation) (Burritt et al., 2002; Jasch, 2009;
opposed to more general sustainability management tools, based Schaltegger and Burritt, 2000). EMA has been increasingly seen as
on over two decades’ evolvement of EMA tools. We empirically one of the master keys to unlock the perceived long standing ten-
investigate the application of EMA in corporate practice and its sion between economic development and environmental degra-
influence on carbon management and disclosure quality. The dation and to achieve “win-win” business cases (e.g. De Beer and
investigation uses data collected for a larger project e the Corpo- Friend, 2006; Ferreira et al., 2010; Jasch, 2009; von Weizsa €cker
rate Sustainability Barometer (CSB) (Schaltegger et al., 2014) and et al., 2009).
analyses EMA application in 114 large companies across four EMA is a broad-based term that encompasses various kinds of
developed nations, namely the U.S., Germany, Australia and Japan. accounting and performance control tools (Bouten and Hooze e,
The data collected in the CSB survey is examined against the carbon 2013; USEPA, 1998). Rikhardsson et al. (2005) consider EMA a
performance management and disclosure information provided by form of managerial technology encompassing various tools and
the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database. techniques of targeted information collection, analysis and
The contributions of this study are twofold. First, this paper communication. This relatively new set of management accounting
extends the existing research by filling the gap in the literature tools includes a variety of tools such as environmental cost ac-
where empirical investigations of the role of EMA in combatting counting, material flow cost accounting (e.g. Christ and Burritt,
climate change at the corporate level and the application of EMA 2015; Günther et al., 2015; Strobel and Redmann, 2002), bench-
and its effectiveness on improving carbon management are still marking, auditing (e.g. Earnhart and Leonard, 2016), eco-control or
lacking. It thus makes a rare attempt to analyse the link between balanced scorecards (e.g. Hansen and Schaltegger, 2016; Henri and
different EMA tools and carbon management and disclosure. Sec- Journeault, 2010), all aiming at helping companies seek improve-
ond, from a practitioner's perspective, the findings of this empirical ment of their environmental, social and economic performances
examination will provide implications for business managers to (Burritt et al., 2009).
understand the usefulness of different EMA tools for corporate
carbon management. Clearly, there has been an increasing number
of EMA tools available to business managers (e.g. Burritt et al., 2.2. Categories of EMA tools
2002; Burritt et al., 2011), but implementing a full coverage or
the ‘whole set’ of EMA tools appears unrealistic in terms of time and Previous literature has explored this flexible and broad-based
resource availability. As such, it is expected that the results of this concept and suggested a number of characteristics and functions
study will help managers make better choices of EMA tools and EMA can fulfil. These functions are summarized below in the three
consequently map out better carbon management activities. categories of (1) measurement, (2) auditing & benchmarking, and
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 (3) control tools.
provides a review of the development of EMA and its multidi-
mensional tools elaborated in prior literature. Following the review, 2.2.1. Measurement tools
Section 3 outlines possible links between the use of EMA tools and The first and foremost characteristic of EMA is its emphasis on
carbon performance and information disclosure. The research measuring monetary and physical flows in a life-cycle of a product or
method used for this study is discussed in Section 4 and the find- system. Previous studies indicate that conventional accounting
ings of the study are presented in Section 5. Section 6 discusses the uses predominantly monetary measures and places less weight on
1610 W. Qian et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 174 (2018) 1608e1619
non-monetary information (Burritt et al., 2002; Gray and performance are critical for ensuring environmental compliance
Bebbington, 2001). Environmental aspects of performance that and meeting environmental targets. Eco-audit (or environmental
involve non-monetary information may be completely ignored in audit) involves systematic, documented (and usually regular) in-
conventional accounting (Bennett and James, 1997). EMA includes spection procedures on ecological impacts of an organization.
physical procedures for material and energy consumption, flows These procedures focus not only on conformity assessment,
and final disposal, and monetary procedures for costs, savings and allowing a comparison of actual figures with internal targets or
revenues related to the activities or material flows with a potential external standards/rules, but also on progress evaluation, helping
environmental impact (Burritt et al., 2002; UNDSD, 2001; IFAC, organizations to improve processes, products and services
2005). With its emphasis on linking monetary and physical mea- (Earnhart and Leonard, 2016). Sustainability audit uses an even
sures, material flow cost accounting is one of the most prominent broader perspective, as the inspection procedures include the three
EMA methods (Günther et al., 2015; Jasch, 2009; Schaltegger and dimensions of sustainability: social, ecological and economic. This
Zvezdov, 2015; Schmidt et al., 2015; Strobel and Redmann, 2002). process measures value and subsequent progress in the three di-
More generally, environmental cost accounting (or environ- mensions. In particular, the values are measured through perfor-
mental costing) which requires separate identification, tracking mance metrics against a set of performance indices (or criteria) or
and allocation of environmental costs and makes these costs more against a set of sustainability guidelines (Coyne, 2006). In line with
visible to managers, has been encouraged by many previous studies auditing, eco- and sustainability benchmarking focus on the
for business as well as not-for-profit organizations or cities (c.f. continuous comparison of environmental performance with other
Benvenga et al., 2016; Burritt, 2000; Epstein, 1996; Hansen and enterprises or corporate sectors in order to reveal a company's own
Mowen, 2005; Henri et al., 2014; Giracol et al., 2011; Joshi et al., strengths and weaknesses. This tool provides a way in which cor-
2001; Parker, 2000; Passarini et al., 2014). It is claimed that porations can be held to account in terms of their environmental
visible costs captured in conventional accounting only account for a and social responsibility, providing a measure that has become a
small portion of a firm's total environmental costs (Epstein, 1996). driver for many companies (Springett, 2003).
Specifically Joshi et al. (2001) empirically found that for every $1
increase in visible costs, there is around $10 increase in associated 2.2.3. Control tools
hidden costs, such as costs that could be avoided by taking envi- Another important aspect of EMA is its environmental control
ronmental measures. This does not include the potentially much function. EMA requires a proper management control system in
larger proportion of full or life cycle costs emphasised in full place to ensure that the organization works on a daily basis to
environmental cost accounting (Epstein, 1996). In a systems view, implement its intended strategy and integrate environmental fac-
life-cycle analysis sets up product or service life-cycle inventories tors into its core business. Eco- and sustainability control as a broad
which enable to capture all possible environmental impacts cross approach emphasizes the use of financial as well as strategic con-
an entire supply chain (Scipioni et al., 2010; Manzardo et al., 2016). trol methods to enable and facilitate the implementation of envi-
Furthermore, decisions on investment in environmental re- ronmental strategy (Gond et al., 2012; Henri and Journeault, 2010;
sources, assets or projects need support from eco-investment Schaltegger, 2011). The process of eco-control ensures that neces-
measures. Eco-investment accounting (or environmental invest- sary financial and environmental information is appropriately
ment appraisal) constitutes another important measurement captured and relevant resources are obtained in the accomplish-
approach of EMA. In appraising environmental investment alter- ment of corporate environmental objectives. More specifically, as a
natives, environmental costs such as water and electricity con- monitoring tool, eco-control represents an instrument of commu-
sumption, and return such as selling of recycled materials, need to nication between managers and subordinates to share EMA infor-
be included and compared to assess the full costs and risks of mation captured and make sound decisions for environmental
different real investment alternatives (Bouten and Hooze e, 2013; improvement (Gond et al., 2012; Henri and Journeault, 2010). An
Parker, 2000). When investigating the case of a rice mill, Burritt environmental information system requires business corporations to
et al. (2009), for example, find that using EMA tools, particularly systematically collect, process, and store information for environ-
monetary and physical environmental investment appraisal, to mental decision-making and is another essential EMA tool. An
assess environmental risks associated with dumping and burning environmental information system complements a company's
of rice husk, helps to visualise the costs and benefits of two existing information systems by collecting and analyzing new types
competing investment options. Eco investment accounting is also of information for the purpose of better planning, development,
found to improve the long term environmental performance during steering and control for environmental management (Pondeville
the investment period. et al., 2013). The establishment of a proper environmental infor-
Expanded from measuring and accounting for environmental mation system may allow for the quantification of both economic
performance, sustainability accounting emphasizes the integration and environmental value changes and the integration of environ-
of economic, environmental and social information. Although mental concerns within business routines.
sustainability accounting is sometimes viewed by critical theorists Clearly, performance control for sustainability encompasses not
as a management fashion or fad, from the management point of only economic and environmental but also social performance
view, sustainability accounting can be used as an important tool to evaluation and beyond. The sustainability balanced scorecard entails
help set out short-term and long-term plans, identify resource a systematic approach to linking sustainability management to
constraints and utilise capacity for integrating and achieving business strategy (Figge et al., 2002; Hansen and Schaltegger, 2016).
financial, environmental and social responsibility (Burritt and More precisely, sustainability balanced scorecards integrate envi-
Schaltegger, 2010). This tool has also been proposed in the ronmental as well as social perspectives into the management and
context of carbon management accounting (Burritt et al., 2011). measurement process for corporate financial success, customer
satisfaction, process improvement, organisational learning and
product innovation (Figge et al., 2002). As such, it is a much dis-
2.2.2. Auditing and benchmarking tools cussed EMA tool for achieving corporate sustainability objectives.
In addition to measurement, audit and benchmarking constitute Most recently, Maas et al. (2016) emphasize the importance of
another important element of EMA. Making comparisons and linkages and the interplay between different EMA approaches to
benchmarking against standards, guidelines and competitor increase the effectiveness of environmental and sustainability
management. external stakeholder demands for more environmental information

(Cho and Patten, 2007). However, business managers who are
3. Hypothesis development convinced to establish constant collecting, communicating and
reporting of environmental information to improve internal busi-
As reviewed in the previous section, the popularity of EMA in ness transparency and accountability, can be expected to gain more
contemporary environmental and sustainability management is insights into how environmental management functions in the
perhaps due to the close linkage between the two concepts. EMA organization (Burritt and Schaltegger, 2010). This is expected to not
can influence environmental management performance as it helps only improve the internal decision-making process but also
tracking and integrating monetary and physical environmental external stakeholder communication and engagement.
information, which increases the visibility of this information and The application of EMA tools is likely to enhance corporate
associated environmental management activities to managers and reputation by reducing environmental-related reputation costs
employees. Consequently, companies applying EMA tools are more which are increasing rapidly in the new sustainability and low
likely to search for better solutions to improve environmental carbon era for corporations emitting large amounts of greenhouse
management quality and performance. gases. While firms with ‘good news’ on their environmental man-
The practice of using EMA tools to assist in environmental agement and carbon performance may have greater incentives to
management decisions and to generate various environmental communicate with stakeholders (Bewley and Li, 2000; Clarkson
benefits has been elaborated in many previous studies and cases. et al., 2011; Li et al., 1997), stakeholder dialogue and disclosure
Specific demonstrations include supporting waste reduction, help companies themselves to understand performance improve-
managing carbon emissions and supporting managers’ long term ment and how to better signal it to stakeholders (Branco and
decision-making, for example, the decision to adopt cleaner pro- Rodrigues, 2006; Rogers, 2008; Walden and Stagliano, 2003).
duction technologies (Burritt et al., 2009, 2011; Henri and Empirical studies have found significant associations between
Journeault, 2010; Parker, 2000). Jasch (2003) presents a case environmental management activities and the level of corporate
study of a Swedish pulp and paper company showing that EMA environmental disclosure (e.g. Frost and Seamer, 2002; Lober et al.,
tools involving material and process flow accounting enable the 1997; Patten, 2000) suggesting that environmental disclosure de-
distinction and comparison between alternatives in environmental rives from information generated by underlying internal manage-
spending incurred for end of pipe disposal and preventative tech- ment practices. In this regard, it is logical to argue that higher
nologies and training. These EMA applications can raise environ- corporate commitments to EMA will lead to more thorough un-
mental awareness of managers and help to overcome their derstanding of internal and external carbon information needs.
ignorance of the magnitude of the operation cost. Gale (2006) ex- Therefore companies with high levels of application of EMA tools
amines EMA applications in the Canadian paper industry, a highly are more likely to achieve a more thorough and comprehensive
polluting and energy intensive industry, and divulges that the carbon disclosure quality. Thus, the second hypothesis is:
environmental costs made available by EMA are at least twice as
H2. The application of EMA tools positively influences corporate
high as generally considered by business managers, which re-
carbon disclosure quality.
iterates the opportunities and usefulness of EMA in supporting
informed decision-making. More recent empirical assessments of In practice, it is unlikely that each group of EMA tools shows the
the roles of environmental costing and eco-control tools in same effects. As described in Section two, each group of EMA tools
manufacturing firms reconfirm the positive relationship between follows a specific purpose. Literature on measurement tools in EMA
EMA applications and the improvement of environmental man- highlights the ability of these tools to measure physical and mon-
agement quality and performance (Henri and Journeault, 2010; etary flows. Therefore, measurement tools can help to reveal hid-
Henri et al., 2014). den aspects of material or energy flows as well as the costs
Manifested in climate change measures, better quality of carbon associated with these flows (e.g. Epstein, 1996; Jasch, 2009;
management may involve higher levels of carbon governance, Schaltegger, 1998; Strobel and Redmann, 2002). This enables
operation, emission reporting and engagement (Tang and Luo, managers to identify which specific processes cause the environ-
2014). This requires an integration of the climate change strategy mental damages related to a firm's activities. Jasch (2003, 2009)
into core business and following an integrated strategy, developing and Burritt et al. (2009) for example demonstrate how the use of
adequate environmental initiatives and actions (CDP, 2012a, b, c, d, measurement tools can help to identify the environmental impacts
e). The effectiveness of EMA application on carbon emission and costs associated with different investment alternatives. The
reduction has been documented either explicitly or implicitly in a application of these tools thus allows managers to choose alter-
few of carbon accounting studies. For example, Burritt et al.’s (2011) natives that are less environmentally harmful. Transferring these
case studies in Germany reveal that EMA is useful to support carbon earlier insights to the context of corporate carbon management, it
management decisions, which may subsequently improve carbon can be expected that measurement tools are primarily useful to
management quality. Tang and Luo's (2014) empirical investigation identify potentials for reducing environmental burdens and thus to
of Australian listed firms also suggests that better tracking and improve carbon management.
measuring of carbon information can help to improve carbon Likewise, control tools can assist companies in implementing
management quality and therefore to achieve better carbon miti- their environmental strategies. They help to identify whether some
gation. Based on these insights, we propose the first hypothesis as aspects of these strategies do not work as intended or whether
follows: some of the environmentally relevant aims are not met (Gond et al.,
2012; Henri and Journeault, 2010; Schaltegger, 2011). This can help
H1. The application of EMA tools positively influences corporate
companies to take countermeasures and thus to improve their
carbon management quality.
environmental performance. Henri and Journeault (2010) show
Management orientated EMA studies support the view that that eco-control effectively helps with implementing an environ-
EMA assists managers and employees in communicating corporate mental strategy, as companies applying such tools show lower
performance and achievements internally (Burritt and Schaltegger, levels of environmental pollution. Similarly, Hansen and
2010; Henri and Journeault, 2010). The pressures for corporate Schaltegger (2016) highlight the potential of one specific control
environmental responsibility may initially stem from internal and tool, the sustainability balanced scorecard, to improve
environmental performance of different types of organizations. At a overview of their companies’ sustainability management activities
more general level, Lisi (2015) finds that company internal control and relevant tools employed. The sustainability managers were first
measures help companies to improve their environmental perfor- contacted by e-mail or phone and then provided with an online
mance. Based on the previous investigations on the effects of the survey questionnaire. In this questionnaire, a list of EMA tools was
application of control tools in various contexts of environmental provided and the respondents were asked to indicate which tools
management, it can be expected that control tools are able to their companies apply. The list of EMA tools is detailed in Table 2.
improve corporate carbon management quality. The survey questions relevant for this research are provided in
In contrast, audit and benchmarking tools measure a company's Appendix A.
performance against the performance of competitors, external The data on carbon measurement and management is collected
standards or along the lines of externally given audit criteria from the database of CDP, an international organization collecting
(Coyne, 2006). In the context of corporate carbon management, and disclosing information related to corporate actions on climate
these tools require collecting carbon emissions data in a stan- change. The CDP has created the largest registry of corporate
dardized format that allows comparisons and benchmarking with greenhouse gas emission data for the world's largest publically
competitors or externally provided standards (Springett, 2003). listed corporations. Despite the voluntary and self-reported nature
This can motivate companies to make their achievements visible to of corporate carbon information, the data can be regarded reliable,
others, helping companies to realistically assess their own as corporate survey responses to the CDP are under close public
achievements and take their environmental responsibility scrutiny and observed by sustainability rating agencies. The CDP
(Springett, 2003). These functions of audit and benchmarking tools has engaged with hundreds of large institutional investors globally
highlight that such tools focus on comparing the final result of to urge corporations to provide their carbon management and
environmental management activities with externally given values emission information (CDP, 2013). Using different data sources for
and goals, instead of focussing on influencing the final result of the variables of this study helps avoid a common method bias and
environmental management activities. Thus, it can be expected that thereby increases the robustness of the examination (Podsakoff
the main benefit of the application of benchmarking and audit tools et al., 2003).
is to improve corporate environmental disclosure (Springett, 2003). To match the survey data, we used 2012 CDP reporting data for
Earlier examinations in the general field of environmental man- the four countries investigated. More specifically, data were
agement support this expectation. Lyon and Maxwell (2011) for sourced from the CDP Global 500 climate change report 2012 (CDP,
example demonstrate that auditing can contribute to improve- 2012a); Australia and New Zealand (ASX200 & NZX50) climate
ments of corporate environmental disclosure. Similarly, Bewley and change report 2012 (CDP, 2012b), S&P 500 climate change report
Li (2000) suggest that disclosure can be improved if high quality (CDP, 2012c), Germany, Austria, Switzerland 350 climate change
audits are conducted. Applying these insights to the context of report 2012 (CDP, 2012d), and Japan 500 climate change report
carbon management, it can be expected that the application of (CDP, 2012e). However, matching the CSB data with the CDP data
audit and benchmarking tools positively influences carbon disclo- revealed that only 114 of the 282 firms responding to the CSB
sure quality. survey data were available in the CDP dataset. Therefore, these 114
Based on the above considerations, we propose the following firms constitute our final sample. The descriptive statistics of the
hypotheses on the specific effects of different groups of EMA tools final sample are displayed in Table 1.
on carbon management quality and carbon disclosure quality: While Germany has the highest number of participating com-
panies (N ¼ 42; 37.9%) the sample in Australia is the smallest
H3a. The application of measurement tools positively influences
(N ¼ 18; 15.8%). This partially reflects the different sizes of the two
carbon management quality.
economies. The revenue of the sample companies range from over
H3b. The application of control tools positively influences carbon V50 million to over V50,000 million per year. Nearly half of the
management quality. sample firms (N ¼ 53; 46.5%) have the revenue within the range of
V5000 million to V50,000 million. The sample firms are dispersed
H3c. The application of audit and benchmarking tools positively
in each of the four industry sectors, with ‘Financials’ having the
influences carbon disclosure quality.
highest number of participating firms. Overall, the sample firms are
reasonably diverse in terms of country, size and industry affiliation.
4. Research method 4.2. Variable measurement
4.1. Data collection 4.2.1. Independent variables

The independent variables in this study include a series of EMA
The data used for the statistical analysis builds on two different tools. They are categorised into the three groups introduced in
sources, the Corporate Sustainability Barometer (CSB) (Schaltegger Section 2.2: measurement tools, audit & benchmarking tools, and
et al., 2014), a survey of large multinational companies, and the control tools. Each tool group includes four EMA tools. A description
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The data on EMA tool application of these tools is shown in Table 2.
was collected from the CSB survey carried out in 2012. CSB is a Participating firms were asked to indicate whether they have
project investigating sustainability management practices, applied the individual tools listed or not (1 ¼ application; 0 ¼ no
including EMA practices, of the largest companies in eleven application). The overall measure of EMA tool application was
industrialised countries. For this paper, survey data from four calculated as the sum of the EMA tools applied. The overall values
countries, Australia, Germany, Japan and the USA, were used for EMA tool application ranged from a minimum of 0 tools (no
because of sufficient carbon management data available in the CDP application) to a maximum of 12 tools (application of all selected
database for these countries. Of the 1045 firms surveyed in these tools) and for each tool group, the values ranged from 0 to 4 (as
four countries, 282 responded to our questionnaires, which resul- each group consists of four tools).
ted in a response rate of 27%.
The survey participants were mainly corporate sustainability 4.2.2. Dependent variables
managers (or equivalent) as they were considered to have a good The carbon disclosure scores in the CDP reflect the thoroughness
Table 1 disclosure).
Economic profiles of sample firms. Carbon management quality in this study is measured by a per-
Variable Category N % formance range (called “band”) assessed in the CDP database.
Country Australia 18 15.8%
Companies are ranked from A (leaders) to E (laggards) according to
Germany 42 37.9% CDP (2012a) criteria as follows: Band A (or A-) firms have a fully
responses Japan 33 28.9% integrated climate change strategy driving significant maturity in
USA 21 18.4% climate change initiatives and actions; band B firms are charac-
Revenue More than V50 million and up to V500 million 7 6.1%
terized by recognizing climate change as a priority in their corpo-
More than V500 million and up to V1500 million 7 6.1%
More than V1500 million and up to V2500 million 11 9.6% rate strategy, but not all initiatives have been fully established;
More than V2500 million and up to V5000 million 20 17.6% band C firms have some activity to combat climate change with
More than V5000 million and up to V50,000 million 53 46.5% varied levels of strategy integration of those initiatives; band D
More than V50,000 million 16 14.1%
firms only provide limited information on their mitigation or
Sectors Financials (Finance & services) 36 31.6%
Material & Engineering (Commodities, auxiliary 35 30.7%
adaptation initiatives and on their strategy concerning climate
material, energy, chemical & pharmaceutical change; and band E firms show little evidence of carbon manage-
industry) ment initiatives and activities, potentially due to just beginning to
Industrials (Industry, capital goods, building) 27 23.7% take action on climate change. Based on this grouping, we coded
Consumer (Consumer goods, trade, logistics) 16 14.0%
sample firms from “5” e highest quality of carbon management to
“1” e lowest quality of carbon management. Additionally to the
firms assessed as laggards by the CDP (band E), we also included
of information reporting in each participating company (CDP, firms with carbon disclosure scores below 50 in category 1, as the
2013). According to CDP, the quality of carbon disclosure is based CDP suggests that such firms show little involvement and man-
on the comprehensiveness of reporting on general risks and op- agement of carbon emissions (CDP, 2013).
portunities of climate change, the impact of existing and future
carbon emission regulations, the physical risk of climate change,
innovations developed in response to climate change, the respon- 4.2.3. Control variables
sible management group or personnel for climate change, quanti- Companies can be expected to be less incentivized to develop
tative emission levels, emissions associated with products, services (particularly advanced) EMA tools and use them to improve their
and supply chains, emission reduction strategy and investment, environmental management and disclosure quality, if they are
strategies for emission trading, and energy consumption and costs. characterized by smaller capitalization, lower environmental/car-
The CDP disclosure scores range from 0 (no disclosure) to 100 (full bon sensitivity and lower financial capability/resources (e.g. lower
Table 2
Description of EMA tools.
Group of tools Individual tools Description Literature (examples)
Measurement tools Material flow cost accounting Identify and analyse flows (input and output) of materials and Strobel and Redmann (2002), Jasch
energy in a production process or a service system in order to (2009), Günther et al. (2015), Christ and
discover reduction potentials. Burritt (2015)
Environmental cost accounting Identify, track and allocate full life cycle costs, including costs that Epstein (1996), Bebbington et al. (2001)
are caused by environmental protection measures or by the lack of
environmental protection measures, and the costs that could be
avoided by taking environmental measures.
Eco-investment accounting Assess the environmental benefits and costs of planned investment Parker (2000), Burritt et al. (2009)
(environmental appraisal) alternatives in order to support selection decisions.
Sustainability accounting A set of tools used to identify and integrate economic, social and Burritt and Schaltegger (2010)
environmental information to provide help for managers dealing
with business sustainability decisions.
Audit & Eco-Audit Systematic, documented (and usually regular) inspection Earnhart and Leonard (2016)
benchmarking (environmental audit) procedures on ecological aspects, which allow a comparison of
tools actual figures with internal targets or external standards/rules.
Sustainability Audit Systematic, documented (and usually regular) inspection Coyne (2006)
procedures on sustainability aspects. They allow a comparison of
actual figures with a set of sustainability guidelines.
Eco-benchmarking The continuous comparison of environmental performance with Springett (2003)
other enterprises or corporate sectors in order to reveal a company's
own strengths and weaknesses.
Sustainability benchmarking The continuous comparison of social, environmental and economic Schaltegger et al. (2014)
performance with other enterprises or corporate sectors in order to
reveal a company's own strengths and weaknesses.
Control tools Eco-control The use of financial as well as strategic control methods to enable Henri and Journeault (2010); Journeault
and facilitate the implementation of environmental strategy and et al. (2016)
achieving environmental performance objectives.
Environmental information Systematic analysis of data on corporate environmental impacts for Pondeville et al. (2013)
system the purpose of better planning, development, steering and control
for environmental management.
Sustainability balanced Integrate environmental and social aspects into conventional Figge et al. (2002); Hansen and
scorecard Balanced Scorecard performance measures in order to allow Schaltegger (2016)
strategic management for sustainability performance.
Sustainability control The use of financial, social and environmental control methods to Gond et al. (2012); Schaltegger (2011)
enable and facilitate the implementation of corporate sustainability
strategy and achieving sustainability performance objectives.
profitability and sales growth). These contextual noises are there- considered as a moderate level (if any score below 50 is considered
fore likely to change the effect and effectiveness of the use of EMA as poor disclosure and any score above 90 as excellent quality
tools on carbon management and disclosure quality. For example, disclosure). The mean (median) value of total EMA application is
larger companies may have higher media exposure and thereby 3.58 (2.00). Given the range of this variable is between 0 (no
incur higher political costs (Gamerschlag et al., 2010). Therefore, application) and 12 (full application), the average EMA use among
they are likely to better manage and disclose their carbon emissions sample firms is relatively low. The lowest application is found
(Brammer and Pavelin, 2006; Deegan and Gordon, 1996). In this among measurement tools (average of 0.78 in a range between
study, firm size (Size) was measured by the natural logarithm of the 0 and 4).
companies’ total sales revenue, as surveyed in the CSB project. A further analysis of the application of individual EMA tools by
Likewise, firms with higher financial performance may be more the sample firms shows that more than half of the sample firms
likely to invest in environmental activities which will lead to higher (54.4%) have not applied any measurement oriented tools. Within
quality of management and disclosure (Deegan and Gordon, 1996; the 45.6% firms that have applied measurement tools, half of them
King and Lenox, 2001). Lang and Lundholm's (2000) study provide applied only one tool. There is one company (<1%) that has applied
evidence of a positive relationship between earnings and envi- all four measurement tools. The application of audit and control
ronmental disclosures. Consistent with prior studies, financial tools presents more diverse characteristics. Over 77% of all firms
performance was measured by the companies' annual return on applied one audit and benchmarking tool or more, the highest
assets (ROA) indicated in company financial reports. application among the three groups of EMA application. Although
Industry affiliation may influence a firm's environmental/carbon the majority of companies have still applied just one or two tools,
sensitivity which has been found to be an important factor influ- 12.3% of the companies have applied all four selected audit and
encing environmental management and disclosure (e.g. Frost and benchmarking tools. About 64% of companies have applied control
Wilmshurst, 2000; Cho and Patten, 2007). Table 1 shows a rela- tools but half of them have only applied one of the control tools.
tively equal coverage of four industry sectors within our sample. 5.3% of the companies have applied all control tools. Table 4 pre-
Therefore, we used an industry dummy to control the influence of sents the correlation between variables.
individual industries, as outlined in Table 1. The industry dummy The correlation table indicates a high association between car-
was gained based on CSB survey data, where companies stated bon management and disclosure quality. The connections between
their core business activities. According to these statements, in- individual groups of EMA tools are moderately correlated while the
dustry affiliation was coded by at least two independent coders. correlations between independent and control variables are all
Similarly, as this study contains data from four different countries, relatively low, showing little sign of multicollinearity. This is
we created 4 country dummies to control the effects of countries of confirmed in the regression analysis where we tested variance
which one (Japan) was used as reference category. inflation factor (VIF) for each variable and the mean VIF for each
model is less than 1.7 (a VIF value greater than 10 may indicate a
multicollinearity problem (Kennedy, 1992)).
5. Results analysis
5.1. Descriptive results 5.2. Hypothesis testing
The descriptive statistics of variables are displayed in Table 3. Table 5 reports the effect of EMA application on carbon man-
The results show that within a range of 1e5, the median carbon agement and disclosure quality. As carbon management quality is
management quality level of the sample firms is 3. This indicates a measured as an ordinal variable, Ordered Logistic Regression (OLR) is
moderate level of carbon management quality. The average (me- used to examine this dependent variable. Carbon disclosure quality
dian) carbon disclosure scores are 73.13 (76.00), which can again be is measured as a continuous variable and thus the Ordinary Least
Table 3
Descriptive statistics.
Variable Mean Median Std. Dev. No. of tools applied No. of firms %
Carbon management quality e 3.00 1.25

Carbon disclosure quality 73.13 76.00 17.78
Size 8.97 8.88 1.55
ROA 3.66 3.33 10.26
Total EMA application 3.58 2.00 2.92
Measurement tools 0.78 0.00 1.03 None applied 62 54.4
One or more tools applied 52 45.6
1 tool applied 26 22.8
2 tools applied 15 13.2
Audit & benchmarking tools 1.61 1.00 1.32 None applied 26 22.8
Control tools 1.19 1.00 1.21 None applied 41 36.0
Table 4
Spearman correlation between tested variables.
Carbon mgmt. Carbon discl. EMA Meas. Audit & ben. tools Control tools Size ROA
tools tools
Carbon management quality 1.00

Carbon disclosure quality 0.86 1.00
EMA application 0.37 0.34 1.00
Measurement tools application 0.13 0.15 0.70 1.00
Audit and benchmarking tools application 0.36 0.34 0.85 0.42 1.00
Control tools application 0.37 0.33 0.81 0.43 0.57 1.00
Size 0.52 0.50 0.13 0.03 0.17 0.18 1.00
ROA 0.04 0.01 0.06 0.14 0.05 0.01 0.03 1.00
Significant coefficients (p < 0.05) for EMA application are highlighted in bold.
Table 5 Table 6
The effect of EMA tools on carbon management and disclosure quality. Effects of different groups of EMA tools on carbon management and disclosure
quality.
Variables 1. Carbon management 2. Carbon disclosure
quality model quality model Variables Measurement Tools Audit Tools Control Tools
Coef. z P Coef. t P Model 1: The effects on carbon management quality

Measurement tools .34(.07)
EMA application .24 3.33 .00 1.46 3.01 .00
Audit & benchmarking tools .43 (.00)
Size .78 5.45 .00 5.36 6.23 .00
Control tools .56(.00)
ROA .04 1.54 .12 .50 3.72 .00
Size .80(.00) .77(.00) .77(.00)
Germany .09 .20 .85 .19 .06 .95
ROA .03(.16) .03(.24) .04(.10)
Australia .64 1.14 .26 .49 .12 .91
Germany .20(.65) .00(.99) .18(.69)
USA .41 .71 .48 .00 .00 .99
Australia .79(.16) .75(.18) .32(.57)
Industrials 1.43 2.37 .02 11.27 2.58 .01
USA .93(.09) .75(.18) .19(.76)
Financials .23 .39 .69 5.58 1.33 .19
Industrials 1.33(.03) 1.23(.04) 1.46(.02)
Mat&Eng .28 .50 .62 5.94 1.40 .16
Financials .23(.69) .11(.85) .35(.55)
Intercept 24.18 2.78 .01
Mat&Eng .18(.75) .00(.99) .23(.68)
LR chi2 68.92(.00)
LR chi2 60.79(.00) 66.20(.00) 67.66(.00)
Pseudo R2 .19
Pseudo R2 .17 .19 .19
F 9.64(.00)
Model 2: The effects on carbon disclosure quality
Adj R2 .41
Measurement tools 2.09(.13)
Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. Significant coefficients Audit & benchmarking tools 2.67 (.01)
(p < 0.05) for EMA application are highlighted in bold. Control tools 3.76(.00)
Size 5.78(.00) 5.22(.00) 5.28(.00)
ROA .48(.00) .45(.00) .53(.00)
Germany 1.55(.64) .44(.90) .82(.81)
Australia 1.64(.70) 1.29(.76) 1.54(.72)
Squares (OLS) regression is applied for the second model. For the USA 2.94(.48) 2.23(.59) 1.79(.68)
country variable, Japan has been specified as the reference category. Industrials 11.24(.01) 10.38(.02) 11.70(.01)
For industry affiliation, ‘Consumer’ serves as the reference category. Financials 5.82(.18) 5.21(.22) 6.39(.13)
Mat&Eng 5.31(.23) 4.35(.31) 6.21(.15)
The results show that the application of EMA tools has a sig-
Intercept 22.63(.01) 25.00(.01) 26.91(.00)
nificant and positive effect (Coef. ¼ 0.24; p ¼ 0.00) on carbon F 8.38(.00) 9.16(.00) 9.73(.00)
management quality. Consequently, hypothesis 1 can be supported. Adj R2 .37 .39 .41
Similarly, the application of EMA tools has a significant, positive
Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. The level of significance is
influence (Coef. ¼ 1.46; p ¼ 0.00) on carbon disclosure quality. given in brackets. Significant coefficients (p < 0.05) for EMA tools are highlighted in
Hypothesis 2 is therefore supported too. Firm size is a significant bold.
contributor to both carbon management (Coef. ¼ 0.78; p ¼ 0.00)
and disclosure quality (Coef. ¼ 5.36; p ¼ 0.00), suggesting that
larger firms are more likely to ensure higher carbon management
carbon disclosure quality (H3c). The results in Table 6 report that
quality as well as disclosure quality. ROA only has a significant effect
audit tools and control tools have a significant effect on carbon
on carbon disclosure quality (Coef. ¼ 0.50; p ¼ 0.00) but not on
management and disclosure quality improvement (p 0.01 as
management quality (Coef. ¼ 0.04; p ¼ 0.12). The country and in-
highlighted in bold). For measurement tools, no significant effect
dustry factors do not show any particular effect in the models,
could be observed. Therefore, hypotheses 3b and 3c are confirmed,
except that the ‘Industries’ sector reports a significantly negative
but hypothesis 3a is rejected. Besides the hypothesized effects,
effect on carbon management (Coef. ¼ 1.43; p ¼ 0.02) and
control tools were additionally found to positively influence carbon
disclosure quality (Coef. ¼ 11.27; p ¼ 0.01), i.e. firms in the ‘in-
disclosure quality and audit tools were additionally found to posi-
dustries’ sector are more likely to have lower carbon management
tively influence carbon management quality. All models in Table 6
and disclosure quality compared to the reference sector e ‘Con-
are significant at below 0.01 levels. The Pseudo R squares in the
sumer’. Table 6 displays the effects of the application of the indi-
OLR models for carbon management quality range from 0.17 to 0.19
vidual groups of EMA tools on carbon management quality (Model
and the adjusted R squares in the OLS models for carbon disclosure
1 e OLR regression) and disclosure quality (Model 2 e OLS
quality are between 0.37 and 0.41.
regression).
In the third set of hypotheses, it is expected that the application
of measurement tools as well as of control tools positively in- 5.3. Sensitivity analysis
fluences carbon management quality (H3a; H3b), while the appli-
cation of audit and benchmarking tools positively influences As some EMA tools may contain substitutable elements (e.g.
environmental cost accounting and material flow cost accounting management and disclosure.
may have some elements in common; some possible substitutive Previous research documents that knowledge of sustainability
nature embedded in sustainability balanced scorecard and sus- management tools is a key driver of their application (Ho €risch et al.,
tainability control), we conducted a sensitivity analysis, to ensure 2015a; Schaltegger et al., 2012). A possible explanation for the
the robustness of our tests and analysis. Firms were assigned “1” if lower level of application of measurement tools might thus be a
they indicated the use of one or more of the tools in a particular tool lower level of awareness of these tools among managers. Managers
group, and “0” if none of the listed tools was applied. In this might be more familiar with audit and benchmarking tools than
alternative measurement, firms applying more than one tool in a with measurement tools, as they are relatively simple to apply.
group were not differentiated from companies applying only 1 tool, Therefore, audit and benchmarking tools are currently more likely
so as to minimise the effect of interpretation bias on their answers. to be applied. Auditing tools are also more related to external
As the overall measure of EMA tools was based on the addition of communication than measurement tools (Maas et al., 2016; Prajogo
the value in each tool category (the assigned value in each tool et al., 2016; Springett, 2003). Measurement tools often require the
category was either 0 or 1), the overall value of EMA tools ranged establishment of more sophisticated continuously operating in-
from 0 to 4. The results from the alternative measures are presented formation management systems. For carbon audit and bench-
in Appendices B and C. Both appendices show that the results are marking, information needs to be processed for internal and
consistent with the findings in Tables 5 and 6 Thus, EMA applica- external auditors. This may build a useful first step in processing
tion is consistently found to be a positive contributor to carbon information and establishing a continuously operating, institu-
management and disclosure quality. Again, control and audit tools tionalized measurement and accounting system, and certification
have significant effects, whereas measurement tools show no sig- practice (Prajogo et al., 2016). Therefore, audit and benchmarking
nificant effects on carbon management and disclosure quality. are likely to be perceived useful in the short term and chosen by
business managers to support the reporting process. In addition,
audit and benchmarking tools have a longer history than mea-
6. Discussion and conclusion surement tools such as environmental full cost accounting and
material flow cost accounting. As a consequence managers and
While the importance of using EMA tools has been increasingly employees are more likely to be acquainted with audit and control
acknowledged in extant literature (e.g. Ascui, 2014; Bennett et al., tools than the relatively younger measurement tools. Control tools
2003; Burritt and Saka, 2006; Ferreira et al., 2010), little attention extend and integrate the work of audit, benchmarking and mea-
has been paid on assessing and understanding the application of surement and link them to strategic uses. This may explain why
different EMA tools and their effectiveness on carbon management control tools significantly influence carbon management quality.
and disclosure. Using data gathered with the Corporate Sustain- The effectiveness of audit and control tools on carbon management
ability Barometer survey of large companies in Germany, Australia, improvement is determined not only by the extent to which a
Japan and the USA, and data on the carbon performance and company engages with these tools, but also by the comprehen-
disclosure collected from the CDP database, this study finds a siveness and quality of the application of these tools. An important
relatively low level of application of EMA tools. While this may interpretation of the positive results found in this study is that
reflect uncertainty among managers concerning the effectiveness business managers and practitioners need to go beyond their cur-
of EMA, our study shows that the use of EMA tools is positively and rent anecdotal application of audit and control tools. Instead, their
significantly associated with carbon management and disclosure ability to consolidate the knowledge and expand the application of
quality. these tools will significantly impact on their future success in car-
With regard to the challenge outlined in the introduction, i.e. bon management and reporting.
staying within the carrying capacity of the earth, the findings show The result that the application of measurement tools does not
that EMA tools are effective in managing carbon emissions. They exert a significant impact on carbon management and disclosure
are useful for managers to address the challenge of climate change quality echoes Frost and Seamer's (2002) earlier findings that
and to become more aware of carbon emissions. These results disclosure is more associated with management and control tools
complement several prior studies on the effects of other groups of than with accounting and reporting tools which may be strongly
management tools (e.g. sustainability management tools, product influenced by reporting standards and guidelines. The inference
design tools; see Ho €risch et al., 2015a), or of some individual tools from current business practice is that external environmental
(e.g. eco-control or company internal emission trading schemes reporting requirements may be too detached from business inter-
(Henri and Journeault, 2010; Ho €risch, 2013), on corporate carbon nal decision making processes. If what is measured will be what
performance. In this regard, a further challenge for practitioners is actually gets managed, the lack of solid application of
to decide which tools to use and which EMA tools are most measurement-orientated tools will compromise the effectiveness
effective. of audit and control tools on carbon management in the long run. In
With regard to this challenge, we analysed three separate this regard, solutions to the alignment of external reporting re-
groups of EMA tools (measurement tools, audit & benchmarking quirements with internal measurement of environmental infor-
tools, and control tools) and their effectiveness on carbon man- mation should be actively sought by researchers and business
agement and disclosure quality. Our results highlight that while practitioners.
audit and control oriented tools have a significant positive impact Besides the insights our research offers, it also comes along with
on carbon management and disclosure quality, the effect of mea- a few limitations. First, our analysis does not include all tools which
surement tools analysed is not found to be significant. Given this are potentially relevant for corporate carbon management. While
insight, it might not surprise that the number of firms applying some tools have already been considered in earlier research, such
measurement oriented tools is lower than those applying the other as Life Cycle Assessment and Carbon Footprinting (e.g. Ho €risch
two groups of EMA tools (i.e. control tools; audit & benchmarking et al., 2015b), further tools not considered in this research, but
tools). This result should encourage practitioners to apply audit and relevant for future investigations on carbon management and
control tools to improve their carbon management and disclosure disclosure are for example Greenhouse Gas Management Systems
while at the same time it calls for more research on developing new or Eco-Efficiency Analysis. With regard to the methodology, we
and more effective measurement tools to support carbon
acknowledge the limitation that the survey was conducted in 2012. (For banks and insurance companies: What was the balance
Together with the matching CDP reporting data from the same year, sheet total or the gross premiums in millions of dollars of your
any new development of EMA or improvement of carbon man- company in the last financial year?)
agement and disclosure in the last couple of years may not have $ _______ million
been captured in the results of this study. In addition, the carbon What is the core business of your company?
measurement and management information in the CDP database is (Please list the most important business activity/activities of
voluntary and self-reported. However, CDP has consistently your company.)
assessed corporate carbon management strategies and the quality Which methods of sustainability management are known in
of managing carbon information through its annual international your company and which are applied in your company?
survey. A further limitation might be that companies which
participate in voluntary surveys and report to the CDP might be Please tick one box per line or none (if tool is neither known nor
more likely to show above average commitment to the issue being applied).
surveyed. Future studies could investigate the effects of applying
EMA tools specifically among companies identified as laggards.
Furthermore, this research has focused on the quantity of EMA tools
applied, in line with the quantitative research approach chosen.
However, it is acknowledged that the quality and process of EMA Control & Managing Known Known and applied
implementation are of relevance to the development of carbon
Environmental information system
management and reporting. Future qualitative research should Eco-control
therefore investigate in how far qualitative differences with regard Sustainability control
to EMA tool application influence carbon management and Sustainability balanced scorecard
disclosure quality. Eco-audit
Sustainability audit
Additionally, future studies may be needed to further explore
Other: _____________
the differences of EMA tools, their effectiveness with regard to
Measuring & Comparing Known Known and applied
management quality, disclosure quality and in the reduction of
carbon impacts. This would create more knowledge as to where Material flow cost accounting
and how to refine and improve measurement tools and how the Environmental cost accounting
Sustainability accounting
interplay between different EMA tools (Maas et al., 2016) can be
Eco-benchmarking
managed to better serve companies in combating climate change. Sustainability benchmarking
Given the insights that EMA tools are generally effective in Eco-investment accounting
improving carbon management performance and disclosure, as Other: _____________
well as the insight which tools are most effective, research is now
challenged to identify what drives the application of these EMA
tools. For the more general context of sustainability management
tools, Ho€ risch et al. (2015b) found that creating knowledge about Appendix B. The effect of EMA tools on carbon management
these tools among sustainability managers is a key driver of their and disclosure quality
application in large corporations as well as in small and medium
sized enterprises. Therefore, public policy and universities should
be encouraged to incorporate sustainability management and ac-
counting into their current business curricula and executive
Variables 1. Carbon management 2. Carbon disclosure
education. quality model quality model
Further research could address which factors, besides knowl-
Coef. z P Coef. t P
edge, are important to stimulate the application of EMA tools which
were found to be effective in this research. One possible reason for EMA application .69 3.32 .00 4.79 3.43 .00
Size .75 5.26 .00 5.06 5.87 .00
the differences in the application of EMA tools could for example be
ROA .04 1.62 .10 .52 3.95 .00
the different legal frameworks different companies in different Germany .09 .19 .85 .62 .19 .85
industry sectors and different countries are subject to. Future Australia .69 1.21 .23 .56 .14 .89
research could investigate whether the application of EMA tools or USA .58 1.04 .30 1.05 0.26 .80
Industrials 1.35 2.24 .03 11.03 2.56 .01
their effectiveness is higher among companies subject to emission
Financials .01 .02 .99 4.13 .99 .33
trading schemes or other pricing mechanisms for carbon emissions, Mat&Eng .15 .27 .78 5.58 1.34 .18
such as carbon taxes. Furthermore, as climate change is by far not Intercept 21.99 2.55 .01
the only environmental problem which causes an overshoot, future LR chi2 69.01(.00)
research could investigate the effects of the EMA tools analysed on Pseudo R2 .19
F 10.16(.00)
further aspects of environmental pollution and environmental
Adj R2 0.42
management quality, such as biodiversity loss or the use of natural
Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. Significant coefficients
resources.
(p < 0.05) for EMA application are highlighted in bold.
Appendix A. Survey questionnaire about the application of

EMA tools (An excerpt from Corporate Sustainability
Barometer survey)
Appendix C. Effects of different groups of EMA tools on
What was your company's revenue in the last financial year (in carbon management and disclosure quality
millions of dollars [unit of measurement depending on domestic
currency)?
perspective. J. Bus. Ethics 69, 111e132.

Burritt, R., 2000. Cost allocation: an active tool for environmental management
Variables Measurement Audit Control accounting. In: Bennett, M., James, P. (Eds.), The Green Bottom Line,
Tools Tools Tools pp. 152e163.
Burritt, R., Hahn, T., Schaltegger, S., 2002. Towards a comprehensive framework for
Panel A: The effects on carbon management quality
environmental management accounting. Links between business actors and
Measurement tools application .54(.14)
environmental management accounting tools. Aust. Account. Rev. 12 (2),
Audit and benchmarking tools 1.47 (.00) 39e50.
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Control tools application 1.08(.01) cleaner production: the case of a Philippine rice mill. J. Clean. Prod. 17 (4),
Size .79(.00) .76(.00) .72(.00) 431e439.
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USA .98(.07) 1.09(.05) .52(.37) trend? Account. Audit. Account. J. 23 (7), 829e846.
Industrials 1.28(.03) 1.03(.09) 1.37(.03) Burritt, R., Schaltegger, S., Zvezdov, D., 2011. Carbon management accounting.
Financials .22(.70) .22(.71) .17(.77) Explaining practice in leading German companies. Aust. Account. Rev. 21 (1),
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CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), 2012a. Business Resilience in an Uncertain,
LR chi2 59.54(.00) 67.24(.00) 64.16(.00)
Resource-constrained World, Global 500 Climate Change Report 2012 (Carbon
Pseudo R2 .17 .19 .18
Disclosure Project, UK).
Panel B: The effects on carbon disclosure quality CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), 2012b. More at Ease: Business and Carbon Pricing,
Measurement Tools 4.94(.07) CDP Australia and New Zealand Climate Change Report 2012 (Carbon Disclosure
Audit Tools 9.25 (.01) Project, UK).
Control Tools 7.78(.01) CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), 2012c. Accelerating Progress toward a Lower-
Size 5.73(.00) 5.14(.00) 4.99(.00) carbon Future, CDP S&P 500 Climate Change Report 2012 (Carbon Disclosure
ROA .47(.00) .50(.00) .51(.00) Project, UK).
Germany 1.62(.63) 2.15(.51) .33(.99) CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), 2012d. Investment in the Context of Climate
Australia 1.13(.79) 2.59(.54) .91(.83) Protection, CDP Germany, Austria, Switzerland 350 Climate Change Report 2012
USA 3.13(.45) 4.37(.28) .34(.94) (Carbon Disclosure Project, UK).
Industrials 11.07(.02) 9.78(.03) 11.52(.01) CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), 2012e. Time to Rethink Resilience and Transform
Financials 5.73(.19) 3.54(.42) 5.50(.20) Business, CDP Japan 500 Climate Change Report 2012 (Carbon Disclosure
Project, UK).
Mat&Eng 5.09(.24) 3.87(.36) 5.06(.24)
CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), 2013. Sector Insights: what Is Driving Climate
_cons 22.38(.02) 20.67(.02) 27.62(.00)
Change Action in the World's Largest Companies? Global 500 Climate Change
F 8.56(.00) 9.39(.00) 9.17(.00)
Report 2013 (Carbon Disclosure Project, UK).
Adj R2 .38 .40 .39 Cho, C., Patten, D., 2007. The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legiti-
Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. The level of significance is macy. A research note. Account. Organ. Soc. 32 (7e8), 639e647.
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cance of contingent variables for adoption. J. Clean. Prod. 41 (2), 163e173.
bold.
Christ, K.L., Burritt, R.L., 2015. Material flow cost accounting. A review and agenda
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Clarkson, P., Overell, M., Chapple, L., 2011. Environmental reporting and its relation
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Journal of Cleaner Production: Wei Qian, Jacob H Orisch, Stefan Schaltegger

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Journal of Cleaner Production 174 (2018) 1608e1619

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

Environmental management accounting and its effects on carbon

management. external stakeholder demands for more environmental information

4. Research method 4.2. Variable measurement

4.1. Data collection 4.2.1. Independent variables

Group of tools Individual tools Description Literature (examples)

5.1. Descriptive results 5.2. Hypothesis testing

Carbon management quality e 3.00 1.25

Carbon management quality 1.00

Coef. z P Coef. t P Model 1: The effects on carbon management quality

Appendix A. Survey questionnaire about the application of

perspective. J. Bus. Ethics 69, 111e132.

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