ABSTRACT
Global greenhouse gas emissions need to reach net-zero around mid-century to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. This decarbonization challenge has, inter alia, increased the political and societal pressure on companies to disclose their carbon footprints. As a response, numerous companies announced roadmaps to become carbon neutral or even negative. The first step on the journey towards carbon neutrality, however, is to quantify corporate emissions accurately. Current carbon accounting and reporting practices remain unsystematic and not comparable, particularly for emissions along the value chain (so-called scope 3). Here we present a framework to harmonize scope 3 emissions by accounting for reporting inconsistency, boundary incompleteness, and activity exclusion. In a case study of the tech sector, we find that corporate reports omit half of the total emissions. The framework we present may help companies, investors, and policy makers to identify and close the gaps in corporate carbon footprints.
ABSTRACT
Ulrich Gallersdörfer is a research associate in the Department of Informatics at the Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on identity management in blockchains. His interest extends to further aspects of the technology, ranging from environmental implications to data analytics applications. Lena Klaaßen is a graduate student at TUM School of Management at the Technical University of Munich. She is specialized in energy markets and accounting. Her research focuses on carbon accounting in the corporate and cryptocurrency space. She has previously analyzed blockchain-related firms for a venture capital fund. Christian Stoll conducts research at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the Center for Energy Markets of the Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on the implications of climate change from an economic point of view.
