TRASCENDER, CONTABILIDAD Y GESTIÓN

study to focus on the term of carbon accounting nor itscomponents proposed by other authors since weunderstand carbon disclosure as a more completeconcept.

Carbon reporting

The third concept that has been used interchangeablywith carbon disclosure is carbon reporting (Kolk et al.,2008). Carbon reporting is about the measurement,monitoring and management of carbon dioxideemissions (Tang & Demeritt, 2018), which althoughthey share characteristics with carbon accountingspecifically in measurement, seeks the correctmanagement of emissions to report their progress inmitigating GHG emissions to the organizations'stakeholders. Furthermore, as with carbon accountingand the ways in which it is conceptualized, carbonreporting can be explained by three fundamental reasonsor justifications for which carbon reporting is given.

The first is a financial justification since emissionscan affect the finances of the company because they areincreasingly expensive. The second justification isrelated to reputation, since, although the financialsavings are not significant, organizations will bemotivated to report their carbon emissions todemonstrate to their stakeholders (e.g., investors,shareholders, and clients) their commitment withclimate change. Finally, a third justification is purely byregulation. Since many of the companies that currentlyreport do so because they are obliged to do so,especially where the reporting scheme is mandatory(e.g., UK). They mainly do it to avoid financial penaltiesand taxes related to poor carbon management (Tang &Demeritt, 2018).

Despite how interesting it can be to analyze the carbonreport alone, the interest of this research is not to delvefurther into the justifications that motivate companies tocarry out this practice. For its part, the central theme ofthis research is carbon disclosure since carbondisclosure can be seen as an emerging organizationalfield according to the definition of organizational fieldsby DiMaggio and Powell (1983, p. 145) in where theydescribe the conformation of an organizational field as"those organizations that, together, constitute arecognized area of institutional life."

Conceptualization Of Carbon Disclosure

In a recent study, Borghei (2021) finds the followingsix key research fields in carbon disclosure: i. Strategicclimate response, ii. Determinants of carbon disclosure,iii. Carbon accounting, iv. Carbon disclosure assurance,v. Quality Carbon disclosure, and vi. Consequences ofCarbon Disclosure. It is due to these key areas in whichcarbon disclosure can be decomposed that we find thisconcept as a superior concept to the previous onesmentioned, in addition to the fact that the literatureemphasizes more on disclosure than on carbon reportingor accounting.

Strategic Climate Response

Corporate responses to climate change changeddramatically since the 1990s (Kolk et al., 2008). Withinthe DVC literature there are several works that haveaddressed strategic climate responses by companies (Bui& Fowler, 2019; Jeswani et al., 2008; Kolk et al., 2008;Kolk & Pinkse, 2004). For example, Kolk and Pinkse(2004) highlight three types of positions in the face ofcorporate climate change strategies, the defensiveposition, the opportunistic / hesitant position and theoffensive position.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.36791/tcg.v7i21sept-dic.178Pp. 143-165