Critical success factors for embedding carbon management in organizations: lessons from the UK higher education sector

Organizations are under increasing pressure from governments and stakeholders to reduce carbon emissions from their business operations for climate change mitigation. Universities are not exempt from this challenge and are operating in a complex external environment, not least responding to the UK government's Climate Change Act 2008 (80% carbon reductions by 2050 as per 1990 baseline). In 2012–2013, the UK Higher Education (HE) sector consumed 7.9 billion kWh of energy and produced 2.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions. This indicates the scale of the challenge and carbon management is central to reduce carbon emissions. However, effective processes for implementing and embedding carbon management in organizations in general, and universities in particular, have yet to be realized. This paper explores the critical success factors (CSFs) for embedding carbon management in universities and, more widely, in organizations. This exploratory study adopted a mixed-methods approach including the content analysis of universities' carbon management plans alongside semi-structured interviews in the UK HE sector. The paper identifies six key factors for successfully embedding carbon management that are pertinent not just for the HE sector, but to organizations broadly: senior management leadership; funding and resources; stakeholder engagement; planning; governance and management; and evaluation and reporting

Relevance and quality of climate planning for large and medium-sized cities of the Tropics

In the last seven years, the number of plans with climate measures for tropical cities has increased 2.3 times compared to the previous seven years as a result of the initiatives of central and local governments, multi-bilateral development aid and development banks. The plans matter in achieving the 11th United Nations’ Sustainable development goal. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to ascertain the relevance and quality of climate planning in large and medium-sized cities in the Tropics. The chapter proposes and applies the QCPI-Quality of Climate Plans Index, consisting of 10 indicators (characterization of climate, number, quantification, relevance, potential impact, cost, funding sources, timetable and responsibility of measures, implementation monitoring and reporting). It is revealed that 338 tropical cities currently have a local development, emergency, master, mitigation, adaptation, risk reduction plan or a resilience or smart city strategy. These tools were unquestionably more common in large cities, especially in OCDE and BRICS countries, while they were rare in Developing Countries. Local development plans (Municipal development, general, comprehensive) were the most common in medium-sized cities, along with those with the lowest quality, while stand-alone strategies and plans (resilience, mitigation, sustainable, adaptation), applied mostly in big cities, present much higher quality

Carbon Pricing in Climate Policy: Seven Reasons, Complementary Instruments, and Political Economy Considerations

Carbon pricing is a recurrent theme in debates on climate policy. Discarded at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen, it remained part of deliberations for a climate agreement in subsequent years. As there is still much misunderstanding about the many reasons to implement a global carbon price, ideological resistance against it prospers. Here, we present the main arguments for carbon pricing, to stimulate a fair and well-informed discussion about it. These include considerations that have received little attention so far. We stress that a main reason to use carbon pricing is environmental effectiveness at a relatively low cost, which in turn contributes to enhance social and political acceptability of climate policy. This includes the property that corrected prices stimulate rapid environmental innovations. These arguments are underappreciated in the public debate, where pricing is frequently downplayed and the erroneous view that innovation policies are sufficient is widespread. Carbon pricing and technology policies are, though, largely complementary and thus are both needed for effective climate policy. We also comment on the complementarity of other instruments to carbon pricing. We further discuss distributional consequences of carbon pricing and present suggestions on how to address these. Other political economy issues that receive attention are lobbying, co-benefits, international policy coordination, motivational crowding in/out, and long-term commitment. The overview ends with reflections on implementing a global carbon price, whether through a carbon tax or emissions trading. The discussion goes beyond traditional arguments from environmental economics by including relevant insights from energy research and innovation studies as well

Planetary Boundaries and Sustainability Indicators. A Survey of Corporate Reporting Boundaries

The aim of this research is two fold: (a) to inquire into the methodological foundations of boundary setting for improved sustainability reporting and (b) to explore current corporate practice in this area, with a particular emphasis on environmental indicators. The paper contends that the boundaries of significant sustainability indicators should encompass all entities over which there is sustainability control, together with indirect impacts arising from activities across the supply chain, and not merely direct impacts caused by entities within boundaries based on financial control. The paper explores, through an empirical study of the sustainability reports disclosed by some of the top FT500 companies, how corporations are setting environmental boundaries in practice. Results show a lack of ambition in the practice of setting organizational and operational boundaries. Most reporting entities define organizational boundaries restricted to financial control, and most of the indirect environmental impacts sought remain undisclose

Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats analysis of carbon footprint indicator and derived recommendations

ABSTRACT: Demand for a low carbon footprint may be a key factor in stimulating innovation, while prompting politicians to promote sustainable consumption. However, the variety of methodological approaches and techniques used to quantify life-cycle emissions prevents their successful and widespread implementation. This study aims to offer recommendations for researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to achieve a more consistent approach for carbon footprint analysis. This assessment is made on the basis of a comprehensive Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats or SWOT Analysis of the carbon footprint indicator. It is carried out bringing together the collective experience from the Carbonfeel Project following the Delphi technique principles. The results include the detailed SWOT Analysis from which specific recommendations to cope with the threats and the weaknesses are identified. In particular, results highlight the importance of the integrated approach to combine organizational and product carbon footprinting in order to achieve a more standardized and consistent approach. These recommendations can therefore serve to pave the way for the development of new, specific and highly-detailed guidelines

Denying bogus skepticism in climate change and tourism research

This final response to the two climate change denial papers by Shani and Arad further highlights the inaccuracies, misinformation and errors in their commentaries. The obfuscation of scientific research and the consensus on anthropogenic climate change may have significant long-term negative consequences for better understanding the implications of climate change and climate policy for tourism and create confusion and delay in developing and implementing tourism sector responses

Sustainable supply chain management: framework and further research directions

This paper argues for the use of Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). The literature has identified antecedents and drivers for the adoption of SSCM. However, there is relatively little research on methodological approaches and techniques that take into account the dynamic nature of SSCM and bridge the existing quantitative/qualitative divide. To address this gap, this paper firstly systematically reviews the literature on SSCM drivers; secondly, it argues for the use of alternative methods research to address questions related to SSCM drivers; and thirdly, it proposes and illustrates the use of TISM and Cross Impact Matrix-multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis to test a framework that extrapolates SSCM drivers and their relationships. The framework depicts how drivers are distributed in various levels and how a particular driver influences the other through transitive links. The paper concludes with limitations and further research directions