Mich "Emissions Accounting and the Responsibility of Corporations for Climate Change"

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Pierre André

Many corporations are now legally required to calculate their carbon footprint. But which greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting methodology they should follow? While criteria of completeness and feasibility are obviously very important, controversies about emissions accounting cannot be properly understood without an examination of the ethical responsibility of corporations for climate change. After exploring the moral underpinnings of issues such as scope extension and multiple counting, I argue that we should consider the distribution of power within the value chain in order to evade the conundrums raised by an emissions accounting methodology based on the polluter-pays principle.