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This study examines how carbon tools, including carbon accounting and management tools, can be created, used, modified and linked with other traditional management controls to materialise and effectuate organisations’ response strategies to multiple interacting logics in carbon management and the role of sustainability managers in these processes.

This study utilises the construct of accounting toolmaking, which refers to practices of adopting, adjusting and reconfiguring accounting tools to unfold how carbon tools are used as means to materialise responses to multiple interacting carbon management logics. It embraces a field study approach, whereby 38 sustainability managers and staff from 30 organisations in New Zealand were interviewed.

This study finds that carbon toolmaking is an important means to materialise and effectuate organisations’ response strategies to multiple interacting carbon management logics. Four response strategies are identified: separation, selective coupling, combination and hybridisation. Adopting activity involves considering the additionality, detailing, localising and cascading of carbon measures and targets and their linkage to the broader carbon management programme. In adjusting carbon tools, organisations adapt the frequency and orientation of carbon reporting, intensity of carbon monitoring and breadth of carbon information sharing. Through focusing on either procedural sequencing, assimilating, equating or integrating, toolmaking reconfigures the relationship between carbon tools and traditional management control systems. Together, these three toolmaking activities can be configured differently to construct carbon tools that are fit for purpose for each response strategy. These activities also enact certain roles on sustainability managers in the process of representing, communicating and/or transferring carbon information knowledge, which also facilitate different response strategies.

The study demonstrates the various carbon toolmaking practices that allow organisations to handle the multiple interacting logics in carbon management. The findings provide suggestions for organisations on how to adopt, adjust and reconfigure carbon tools to better embed the ecological logic in organisations’ strategies and operations.

The authors identify how carbon toolmaking materialises and effectuates organisations’ responses to multiple interacting logics in carbon management.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review the state-of-art literature on the net-zero economy in the field of supply chain management.

A systematic literature review of 79 articles published from 2009 to 2021 has been conducted to minimise the researchers' bias and maximise the reliability and replicability of the study.

The thematic analysis reveals that studies in the field of net-zero economy have mostly been done on decarbonisation in the supply chain, emission control and life cycle analysis and environmental and energy management. The findings highlight the strong positive association between digitalisation, circular economy and resources optimization practices with net-zero economy goals. The study also addresses the challenges linked with the net-zero economy at the firm and country levels.

Practitioners in companies and academics might find this review valuable as this study reviews, classifies and analyses the studies, outlines the evolution of literature and offers directions for future studies using the theory, methodology and context (TMC) framework.

This is the first study that uses a structured approach to analyse studies done in the net-zero field by assessing publications from 2009 to 2021.

This study aims to explore how large Australian companies in emission intensive industries perceived the introduction of the Carbon Tax as an approach to carbon emissions regulation and as a tool for accountability. It also investigates the influence of perceptions of the new tax on the internal carbon emissions management practices and the motivations for such actions.

This study draws on transaction cost theory and legitimacy theory to address corporate perceptions, responses and motivations in relation to the Carbon Tax. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 senior managers directly responsible for the carbon emissions management of their companies.

The study found that the Carbon Tax, viewed by the high-emitting companies as a heavy financial burden, had a significant influence on moderating organisational legitimacy seeking behaviours. It is evident that the transaction cost issues in the form of the carbon pricing requirement has led to a change of focus to “management” rather than merely reporting to external stakeholders. This influenced companies to change their behaviour with the potential to internalise previous externalities of carbon pollution.

This research highlights that a pricing signal in emissions regulations is essential in conjunction with external pressures to effectively stimulate emissions management actions in companies. It extends our understanding of legitimacy theory by suggesting that a mandatory pricing mechanism as explained by transaction cost economics has the potential to lead to actual changes in corporate behaviour through a focus on management rather than reporting.

The study highlights the important elements of any effective emissions policy designed to encourage strong emissions management actions from companies. Based on the findings of the study, it is evident that the Carbon Tax was a very effective mechanism in driving emission management actions, despite the general perception that any deficiencies associated with such a price mechanism could have a negative effect on the economy.

Climate change is a critical issue for the modern society and this study discussed a short-lived policy tool in the Australian context that had the potential to change corporate behaviour in relation to carbon management.

This study is among the very few studies that have examined the influence of the Carbon Tax on internal emissions management practices of companies, and therefore, provides a unique dataset of corporate responses to the Carbon Tax. Given the short time frame that the Carbon Tax was in operation, the study enhances our understanding of the influence the Carbon Tax had on companies responsible for high greenhouse gas emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate the measurement of a carbon footprint and environmental program in supply chain management.

The study uses a case study methodology and employs the qualitative methods of interviews and document analysis to collect data on Hyundai Motors Co. (HMC) and its key first‐tier supplier, referred to here as Supplier A, in the Korean automobile industry.

The results of the study show that a key strategic action to implement carbon management is to identify and measure the carbon footprint of products and processes within the supply chain. A carbon footprint measurement framework and different levels of CO₂ adoption categories developed at HMC are presented. By monitoring and evaluating suppliers' CO₂ emissions performance, a focal company may avoid carbon‐related risk and retain competitiveness based on its supply chain.

Developing a carbon footprint measurement and evaluation program in the supply chain provides a track record to improve carbon and energy efficiency. This may lead companies to develop and exploit greater energy efficiency to tackle carbon emission challenges in the supply chain.

This paper provides academics and managers with a new approach to consider carbon management and green supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on carbon accounting as one aspect of accounting for impacts on the environmental capital and to detail the “convergence” process between two emergent corporate carbon management accounting approaches within a multinational company. In contrast to the reporting stakeholder and regulatory focus, company-internal issues of carbon accounting have so far rarely been investigated in depth. Based on a qualitative analysis of this in-depth case study, questions about what could be considered an effective carbon management accounting system are raised.

The research has been conducted with an in-depth case study, using participant observation (Spradley, 1980). The authors follow a pragmatic research approach, and the proposal of Malmi and Granlund (2009) “to create theories useful for practice is to solve practical problems with practitioners and synthesize the novel solutions to a more general form”.

This case study demonstrates that it is possible to connect two corporate carbon management accounting approaches focusing on products and the organization into a combined carbon management accounting system. This has potential impact in making carbon management accounting in organizations leaner, and more efficient in terms of performance measurement and external communication.

This research is based on a single case study, and more case studies in different industries could highlight further practical implementation difficulties and approaches to overcome.

This paper unveils that different carbon management accounting approaches can emerge in parallel in the same corporation. The paper discusses possibilities and challenges to converge them in terms of methodology (emission factors for example) and/or in terms of information systems, on which the calculations are based.

This is, to our knowledge, the first case study of an organization explicitly acknowledging the existence of multiple emerged carbon management accounting approaches and trying to make sense of them in a convergence process to create an overarching carbon accounting system.

This study aims to investigate why companies use the internal price of carbon (IPC) for carbon management.

The authors adopt sustainable transition management theory to design the research and explain the findings of empirical models. The sample includes companies that participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire survey, derived from 37 countries and regions for the period 2015–2018.

The results first reveal that transition management facilitates an upward adoption trend annually during the study period. Second, the authors find that the proxies for transition management are all correlated with the adoption of the IPC in the predicted direction. Third, the authors identify spatial patterns and driving factors for adoption of the IPC.

This study provides additional insight beyond the limited prior literature in this area. In particular, the findings regarding the influence of physical environment on climate-related decisions have not been documented in extant literature. IPC is expected to interact with and complement external price of carbon for climate change governance. Thus, the exploring results of the paper fill an important gap and pave the way for future study to examine emerging issues in the burgeoning field of carbon accounting for climate change.

Carbon management accounting (CMA) is one part of sustainability accounting designed to provide information for the management of carbon dioxide (CO₂) releases. Adopting the contingency framework, this paper aims to examine the contextual antecedents that influence CMA adoption in Ghanaian firms.

The paper tests seven contextual dimensions, namely, strategy, structure, size, environmental management system (EMS), decentralization, technology and perceived environmental uncertainty, on CMA adoption from a survey of 125 accountants.

Consistent with prior literature, organizational strategy, structure, environmental management accounting (EMA), firm size, technology and perceived environmental uncertainty were found to be positively associated with CMA adoption and hence support contingency theory. However, a relationship between decentralization and EMA adoption was not supported by the sample data. Also, the existence of CMA systems was found to be low in the sample firms, although more than half of the respondents have EMS.

The study is limited to Ghana hence possible generalization of the results is limited. Further exploration of contingency-based research in other emerging economies would provide valuable insights on CMA adoption and practices to contribute to the CMA literature.

The findings suggest that although CMA adoption and practices is low in the sampled firms, both contextual and environmental factors play a vital role in the adoption of CMA in developing economies, as it pertains to the generic management accounting systems. Policies governing CMA practice should incorporate organizational contextual factors.

The paper presents preliminary empirical evidence on the state of adoption and practice of CMA from an emerging economy perspective, an area which lacks empirical investigation both in the EMA and the carbon accounting domain. It draws considerable novelty on the basis that despite the growing interest in climate change-based research empirical works on CO₂ emissions conducted exclusively from management accounting perspective, and in developing economies in particular, have been scant. The paper extends the contingency theory framework from conventional practices to the EMA field.

Drawing on the theory of contingency, the aim of this work is to understand how supply chain-related contingencies, arising from climate change, are related to changes in the organisational structure of firms. Further, the authors explore how this relationship influences the perception of sustainability managers on the adoption of low-carbon operations management practices and their related benefits.

To achieve this goal, this research uses NVivo software to gather evidence from interviews conducted with ten high-level managers in sustainability and related areas from seven leading companies located in Brazil.

The authors present four primary results: a proposal of an original framework to understand the relationship between contingency theory, changes in organisational structure to embrace low-carbon management, adoption of low-carbon operations practices and benefits from this process; the discovery that an adequate low-carbon management structure is vital to improve the organisations’ perceptions of potential benefits from a low-carbon strategy; low-carbon management initiatives tend to emerge from an organisation’s existing environmental management systems; and controlling and monitoring climate contingencies at the supply chain level should be permanent and systematic.

Based on the knowledge of the authors, to date, this work is the first piece of research that deals with the complexity of putting together contingency theory, climate-change contingencies at the supply chain level, organisational structure for low-carbon management and low-carbon operations management practices and benefits. This research also highlights evidence from an emerging economy and registers future research propositions.

This study aims to examine the various climate change practices adopted by firms and develop a set of corporate indexes that measure the level of climate change corporate commitment, climate change risk management integration and climate change strategies adoption. Moreover, this study examines the relationship between the aforementioned indexes. The authors claim that there is a positive relationship between the adoption of climate change strategies, corporate commitment and risk management integration. The aforementioned indexes have been used to assess the largest companies in the oil and gas sectors.

To assess this study’s sample companies, a content analysis of their carbon disclosure project (CDP) reports for the years 2012-2015 was conducted. Finally, weights were assigned to the content analysis data based on the results of a survey regarding the difficulty of implementing each climate change practice included in the respective index. The survey sample included climate change experts who are either currently employed in companies that are included in the Financial Times Global 500 (FT 500) list, or work as external partners with these companies.

The present study results highlight the need for developing elaborate corporate indexes, as the various climate change practices have different degrees of difficulty regarding their implementation. Additionally, a general trend in adopting climate change strategies is observed, especially in the field of carbon reduction strategies, which mainly involve the implementation of low carbon technologies. Finally, a positive and significant relationship was found between carbon reduction targets, risk management integration and climate change strategies.

Although international research has extensively examined the importance of managers’ perceptions on environmental issues as an enabling factor in developing environmental strategies, according to the results of our survey, corporations must go beyond top management commitment towards climate change to be able to successfully implement climate change strategies. Incorporation of climate change risk management procedures into a company’s core business activities as well as the establishment of precise carbon reduction targets can provide the basis on which successful climate change strategies are implemented.

Most studies address the issue of climate change management in terms of environmental or sustainability management. Furthermore, research on climate change and its relationship with business management is mainly theoretical, and climate change corporate performance is measured with aggregate indexes. This study focuses on climate change which is examined from a five-dimensional perspective: top management commitment, carbon reduction targets, risk management integration, carbon reduction and carbon compensation strategies. This allows us to conduct an in-depth analysis of the various climate change practices of firms.

The purpose of this paper is to apply regulatory mix theory as a framework for investigating the use of management accounting techniques by Australian large listed companies in constraining their carbon emissions.

Semi-structured interviews are conducted with senior managers involved with managing their companies’ carbon emission risks. Analysis of the interview data is undertaken with a view to provision of insight to the impact of the regulatory framework imposed to deal with carbon emissions.

The findings reveal that regulation impacting companies’ economic interests rather than requiring mere disclosure compliance is much more likely to be behind focusing top management and board attention and use of management accounting techniques to set targets, measure performance and incentivise emission mitigation. However, there remains much scope for increased use of accounting professionals and accounting techniques in working towards a carbon-constrained economy.

The usual limitations associated with interpretation of interview data are applicable.

Under-use of management accounting techniques is likely to be associated with less than optimal constraint of carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions are accepted as being involved in harmful climate change. To the extent effective techniques are under-utilised in constraining emissions, harmful consequences for society are likely to be heightened unnecessarily.

The topic and data collected are original and provide valuable insights into the dynamics of management accounting technique use in managing carbon emissions.