No. 27: The impact of carbon disclosure mandates on emissions and financial operating performance

Jahr: 2020
Typ: Working Paper

Abstract

We examine whether a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions creates stakeholder pressure for firms to subsequently reduce their emissions. For UKincorporated listed firms such a mandate was adopted in 2013. Using a difference- indifferences design, we find that firms affected by the mandate reduced their emissions – depending on the specification – by an incremental 14-18% relative to a control group. This reduction was accompanied by an average 9% increase in production costs. At the same time, the treated firms were able to increase their sales by an almost compensating amount. Taken together, our findings provide no indication that the disclosure requirement led to a significant deterioration in the financial operating performance of the treated firms, despite the significant carbon footprint reduction following the disclosure mandate.

Beteiligte Institutionen

Die Hauptstandorte vom TRR 266 sind die Universität Paderborn (Sprecherhochschule), die HU Berlin und die Universität Mannheim. Alle drei Standorte sind seit vielen Jahren Zentren für Rechnungswesen- und Steuerforschung. Hinzu kommen Wissenschaftler der LMU München, der Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, der Universität zu Köln und der Leibniz Universität Hannover, die die gleiche Forschungsagenda verfolgen.