Philip Dickemann

2023

Greenhouse gases contribute significantly to human-induced climate change, in particular through the economy. The reporting of carbon emissions is therefore increasingly gaining importance as companies are pressured by their stakeholders to reduce and report their emissions. Among the key challenges for comprehensive reporting of carbon emissions and their equivalents in sustainability reports and supplementary company reports is the application of the right strategy and the selection of appropriate methods for providing relevant information. So far, there is no comprehensive study of sustainability reports that provides information on the methods used in practice to present information on carbon emissions. Therefore, in this investigation, both the literature and a variety of company reports are examined with the aim to identify methods that are currently applied in practice to quantify carbon emissions. Finally, we are not only able to identify the specific methods that are applied in practice, but we can also classify them in the relevant literature and assign them to methodical approaches that are already known in the literature. Through our research, we can provide implications for both scientists and practitioners for the application and development of methods in the context of carbon emission quantification.