Revisiting the role of firm-level carbon disclosure in sustainable development goals: Research agenda and policy implications

• Published in: Gondwana research 2023-05, Vol.117, p.230-242
• Main Authors: Ma, Beiling, Lin, Sha, Bashir, Muhammad Farhan, Sun, Huaping, Zafar, Mahwish
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbon disclosure; Carbon disclosure project; Environmental sustainability; Literature review; Sustainable Development Goals
• ISSN: 1342-937X; 1878-0571
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gr.2023.02.002

[Display omitted] •Climate change has forced corporate managements to provide more information about carbon disclosure.•Bibliographic coupling, citation mapping and content analysis are used as methodology.•VOSviewer has identified four most dominant themes in the dataset. The urgency to overcome climate change under COP 26 and 27 has allowed closer attention towards environmental sustainability. As a result, businesses are under pressure from stakeholders to provide more information about greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprints. The current study performs a systematic review of firm-level carbon disclosure under carbon disclosure project (CDP) publications to articulate key research themes based on bibliographic coupling, citation mapping and content analysis. VOSViewer was used to analyze carbon disclosure literature to provide a comprehensive overview of research themes, most-contributing authors, research journals, and keywords. Our findings reveal that climate change strategies, carbon footprint and market response to climate change (cluster 1), carbon information, stock market & financial performance and impact of environmental penalties over the cost of capital (cluster 2), GHG disclosure, stakeholder relevance and BOD effectiveness in environmental strategies (cluster 3) and determinants for dissemination of environmental information, carbon mitigation, and carbon management systems (cluster 4) are the most significant research themes within the existing research. Based on our research analysis, we provide several key policy recommendations to use carbon disclosure practices as a benchmark in evaluating firms’ commitment to environmental sustainability.