Abstract

This dissertation investigates the meanings and practices of corporate climate responsibility (CCR), with a special focus on greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting. Insufficient climate regulation has given rise to many fragmented options for corporate climate action. This enables inconsistent and strategic uses of climate practices, consequently impinging on effective climate mitigation and understandings of corporate climate impacts. I address these issues within the three manuscripts of this dissertation. The first manuscript improves our understanding of CCR by identifying four frames in which CCR is conceptualized and determining whether each frame aligns with a social justice perspective on responsibility. The second manuscript addresses the gap in company-level emissions data resulting from incomplete GHG reporting. We train three machine learning models to predict company-level Scope 1 emissions and use the best model to estimate global emissions from public companies. The third manuscript investigates whether companies are strategically delineating their organizational boundaries according to different consolidation approaches when conducting GHG accounting. The first manuscript demonstrates that CCR is conceptualized according to scientific, social, legal, and economic frames. We find that the scientific frame is most aligned with a social justice perspective on responsibility, while the economic frame is least aligned. According to these insights, we provide recommendations for a new and comprehensive understanding of CCR. In the second manuscript, our best model shows an improvement in prediction accuracy compared to a benchmark study. We estimate that emissions from public companies are 22% (11.4 GtCO2e) of global GHG emissions in 2021. We also find that reporting companies make up 82% of global corporate emissions, implying that high emitters are already reporting their emissions. The third manuscript results suggest that companies are not using consolidation approaches strategically. However, companies are not transparent about why they choose certain consolidation approaches. Altogether, this research highlights the need for a common understanding and adoption of CCR and the climate practices which define it. In doing this, we help guide companies and policymakers to prioritize certain climate practices over others. While companies must continue to report their emissions and be more transparent about their accounting methodologies, there should be an increased focus on implementing carbon management systems that facilitate real decarbonization.