Title: Determinants of carbon accounting disclosure: an analysis of international companies

Authors: Isabel Gallego-Álvarez; Beatriz Cuadrado-Ballesteros; Jennifer Martínez-Ferrero

Addresses: Faculty of Economics, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (IME), University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno Edificio FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain ' Faculty of Economics, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (IME), University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno Edificio FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain ' Faculty of Economics, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (IME), University of Salamanca, Campus Miguel de Unamuno Edificio FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain

Abstract: This paper aims to examine two closely related issues based on social awareness of greenhouse gas emissions. The first aim is to find whether firms choose to include carbon accounting in their financial and accounting statements. The second aim is to find what the explanatory factors are behind the decisions managers take to reflect them. A sample of 119 firms from different developed and developing countries and industries for 2011 was employed. We then formulated a dependence model in which the dependent variable was whether or not the company included carbon accounting in its annual reports. By using two logit regression models, our findings show that not all the firms analysed publish such information in their annual accounts and that only the variables related to emission trading schemes and no Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators on climate change positively affect the firm's decision to reflect carbon accounting.

Keywords: environmental disclosure; carbon accounting reporting; greenhouse gas emissions; global reporting initiative; GRI; KPMG.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2018.092898

International Journal of Global Warming, 2018 Vol.15 No.2, pp.123 - 142

Received: 21 Jun 2016
Accepted: 18 Feb 2017
Published online: 02 Jul 2018 *

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