Attributing Corporate Carbon Mitigation Outcomes to Substantive Decarbonization Actions through Change Analysis

Abstract

Abstract As corporations increasingly disclose their environmental performance and claim to decarbonize their operations, it becomes challenging to distinguish substantive decarbonization actions from symbolic gestures that obscure business-as-usual operations. Despite numerous studies highlighting the prevalence of symbolic corporate carbon management, a clear method for measuring and comparing substantive corporate decarbonization action is still not well established. This study develops an outcome attribution framework using decomposition and decoupling analysis to measure substantive decarbonization actions that effectively reduce emissions. Using secondary panel data from a sample of firms listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from 2018 to 2023, this study aims to: 1) analyze how changes in emissions can be broken down into changes in carbon intensity, energy intensity, and revenue; 2) evaluate the extent of effective corporate carbon mitigation outcomes that can be attributed to substantive corporate decarbonization actions; and 3) examine the correlation between substantive actions and emission reductions. The findings reveal a generally low level of substantive actions, aligning with previous research that suggests corporate climate actions are often more symbolic than substantive. More notably, the weak correlation between substantive actions and emission reductions underscores the limitation of using mitigation outcomes as a proxy for the effectiveness or substantiveness of corporate climate actions. This result emphasizes the influence of unintended external driving factors that may obscure symbolic actions and enable business-as-usual operations to persist under seemingly positive mitigation outcomes. The outcome attribution framework developed in this study offers a novel approach for researchers and decision-makers to measure and compare substantive decarbonization actions at scale, which enhances the decision-usefulness of the commonly disclosed metrics, provides clarity on the effectiveness of corporate decarbonization initiatives, and ultimately guides resources towards meaningful climate actions and advances best practices.