Accounting For Carbon

An authoritative overview of the requirements and costs of monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions from industry to regional and national levels.

Carbon Accounting is a vital tool in enabling organisations to measure and report on their greenhouse gas emissions. As the need to respond to the causes and impacts of climate change becomes increasingly urgent, emissions calculations and inventories are a vital first step towards mastering climatic risk. The Handbook of Carbon Accounting offers an accessible and comprehensive presentation of the discipline. The book examines the different methods or instruments implemented by countries and companies – such as carbon taxation, carbon markets and voluntary offsetting – while revealing how these stem not simply from the aim of reducing emissions for the lowest cost, but more as a compromise between divergent interests and individual world views. It also explores the historical context of the emergence of carbon accounting, assessing its evolution since the Rio Conference in 1992 and the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, to the latest Conference of Parties in 2015 in Paris.The book concludes with a very practical guide to calculate, reduce, offset and disclose your carbon footprint.Like other management tools, carbon accounting may not be an exact science, but its contribution has never been more important. The Handbook of Carbon Accounting is a vital educational resource that will help readers – including those with no prior knowledge of the field – to understand carbon flows and stocks and to take action. It forms part of a movement that heralds the start of a new economic era in which the search for prosperity can live in harmony with the environment.

This volume is devoted to management accounting approaches for analyzing business benefits and costs of climate change. It discusses future directions on carbon accounting, performance measurement and reporting as well as links between climate accounting and business processes, product and service development, supply chain innovation, economic successes and stakeholder relations.Companies are increasingly called on to contribute to combatting climate change and also face the challenges presented by climate-change related costs, risks and benefits. Risks can result from unpredictable weather conditions and government regulations, such as the EU emission trading system and new building codes. Climate change also offers numerous opportunities, such as energy efficiency innovations and carbon neutral products and production.Good management requires that carbon emissions are tracked and climate-related costs, risks and benefits are identified, measured and assessed. As such, research addressing corporate accounting frameworks and tools is of increasing importance when it comes to managing these carbon and climate-related issues.

In the context of Australia’s developing carbon economy, fire management helps to abate emissions of greenhouse gases and is an important means of generating carbon credits. The vast high-rainfall savannas of northern Australia are one of the world’s most flammable landscapes. Management of fires in this region has the potential to assist with meeting emissions reduction targets, as well as conserving biodiversity and providing employment for Indigenous people in remote parts of Australia’s north. This comprehensive volume brings together recent research from northern Australian savannas to provide an internationally relevant case study for applying greenhouse gas accounting methodologies to the practice of fire management. It provides scientific arguments for enlarging the area of fire-prone land managed for emissions abatement. The book also charts the progress towards development of a savanna fire bio-sequestration methodology. The future of integrated approaches to emissions abatement and bio-sequestration is also discussed.

The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard helps companies and other organizations to identify, calculate, and report GHG emissions. It is designed to set the standard for accurate, complete, consistent, relevant and transparent accounting and reporting of GHG emissions.

We have spent a great deal of time on the continued development of accounting and auditing standards, which are used as a primary component of corporate reporting, to reach today's financial reporting framework. However, is it possible to say that, currently, financial statements provide full and prompt disclosure? Or will they still be useful as a primary element with their current structures in corporate reporting? Undoubtedly, we are deeply concerned about these issues in recent times. This volume contains chapters to discuss the today's and tomorrow's accounting and corporate reporting phenomena in a comprehensive and multidimensional way. Therefore, this book is organized into six sections: "Achieving Sustainability through Corporate Reporting", "International Standardization", "Financial Reporting Quality", "Accounting Profession and Behavioral Aspects", "Public Sector Accounting and Reporting", and "Managerial Accounting".