Greenhouse gas emissions disclosure by cities: the expectation gap

Parvez Mia, James Hazelton and James Guthrie

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 2019, vol. 10, issue 4, 685-709

Abstract: Purpose - Cities are crucial to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper aims to explore the quality of GHG disclosures by cities via the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and compares them with the expectations of users. Design/methodology/approach - The expectation gap framework is used to examine the GHG disclosure quality of 42 cities. User expectations are determined via a literature review and CDP documentation. City disclosures are reviewed using content analysis. Findings - GHG information at the city level is outdated, incomplete, inconsistent, inaccurate and incomparable and, therefore, to meet user expectations, improvement is needed. Research limitations/implications - The findings have implications for policymakers, stakeholders and managers. Guidelines are required for better disclosure of GHG information relating to cities, and stakeholders need to develop better skills to understand emissions information. Managers have a responsibility to measure, disclose and mitigate GHG emissions to meet the expectations of stakeholders. Originality/value - Prior studies focus on GHG disclosures via the CDP by corporations. This is the first accounting study to examine GHG disclosures by cities via the CDP. The expectation gap framework is a novel approach to sustainability disclosure research.

Keywords: Disclosure; Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP); Carbon; Emission; City; GHG; Expectation gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:sampjp:sampj-11-2017-0138

DOI: 10.1108/SAMPJ-11-2017-0138

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal is currently edited by Prof Carol Adams

More articles in Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().