گزارش تغییرات جوی و شرکت های چند ملیتی: بینش از نظریه سازمانی و کسب و کار بین المللی Climate change reporting and multinational companies: Insights from institutional theory and international business

1. Introduction The 2015 Paris Agreement marks an important step in tackling global climate change, as world nations agree a path forward to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and keep global warming below 2 °C. Although companies were not directly involved in the Paris negotiations, more than 500 registered their support by signing the Paris Pledge for Action (University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), 2015). By signing this pledge, companies agree to implement and even exceed commitments made by governments under the Paris Agreement. Companies and in particular multinational companies (MNCs) have an important impact on climate change. A 2014 study found that MNCs in the fossil fuel and cement industries are amongst 90 “carbon majors” responsible for significant historical anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Heede, 2014). Reporting on GHG emissions by companies is important to understand their impact on climate change and to track GHG emissions performance. While there is a significant body of literature providing a very broad range of perspectives on accounting and reporting of climate change with recent special issues in journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal and Journal of Cleaner Production (see de Aguiar & Bebbington, 2014), particularly relevant in this context is the subset of this literature which deals with the quality of reporting on climate change. Extant research has found widespread quality problems regarding company GHG reporting. For example, reported GHG emissions data have been found to be incomplete, failing to cover all of the company operations (Liesen, Hoepner, Patten, & Figge, 2015). Data reported have been criticized as not useful for decision making (Andrew & Cortese, 2011; Haigh & Shapiro, 2011; Sullivan & Gouldson, 2012) with emissions data not additive at different levels of aggregation (firm, industry and national level) (Haslam, Butlin, Andersson, Malamatenios, & Lehman, 2014).