21 January 2015

The ESRC has selected the Business School’s REF 2014 Impact Case Study on Improving Corporate Carbon Accounting and Carbon Management as one of three that particularly highlight the impact of ESRC research on society.
Impact Case Study - image of Business School

The Business School’s research on carbon accounting has led to the development of international benchmarks for corporate performance, more than £500K of business investment and a spin-out company benchmarking over 1,000 companies.

Carbon accounting – which reports on a business’s greenhouse gas emissions – is an emerging field with massive financial implications. The International Energy Agency estimates that responding to climate change will require approximately $1 trillion per year of additional investment. Carbon accounting is now part of the annual reporting cycle for most large companies worldwide, and has become mandatory for UK-quoted companies.

ESRC- and NERC-funded research by Craig Mackenzie and Francisco Ascui, has shaped the emerging understanding and practice of carbon accounting and carbon performance measurement internationally. It has influenced the development of carbon indexes and benchmarks, and motivated their use by some of the world’s largest index providers, investors and companies to measure and drive improvements in corporate carbon management.

Mackenzie and Ascui, both in the Business School, published one of the first definitions of carbon accounting and developed new methods for benchmarking performance. Mackenzie’s research provided evidence that sustainability benchmarking can improve corporate carbon management.

Impact

  • The research has led to the development of carbon benchmarks for supermarket and mobile telecoms companies, funded by major companies in these sectors. UK and international companies have invested over £500,000 in further development and application of the research – including £25,000 from Tesco, Waitrose and M&S in 2008; £42,000 from Vodafone, Deutsche Telecom, Telefonica and France Telecom in 2009-10; £300,000 from Haymarket in 2009; and £80,000 from Brand Republic in 2010.
  • The work on carbon benchmarking led to the creation of ENDS (Environmental Data Services) Carbon, a university spin-out company which has benchmarked over 1,000 companies for 20 corporate clients, including the market-leading trade publication Brand Republic and the international index provider FTSE Group.
  • In 2010 the international Carbon Disclosure Project launched the ‘Carbon Action’ initiative based partly on Mackenzie’s benchmarking research – recruiting over 90 global institutional investors with £4.5 trillion of assets.
  • The research has prompted a new initiative from the UN Principles for Responsible Investment – a network of 1,200 investors – to test the effectiveness of shareholder engagement strategies through a randomised trial with 2,200 companies.

Further information