Field-configuring events and the failure to standardise accounting for carbon emissions

Sophie Giordano-Spring (), Carlos Larrinaga and Géraldine Rivière-Giordano ()
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Sophie Giordano-Spring: MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School
Carlos Larrinaga: Universidad de Burgos
Géraldine Rivière-Giordano: MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School

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Abstract: Purpose Since the withdrawal of IFRIC 3 in 2005, there has been a regulatory freeze in accounting for emission rights that contrasts with the international momentum of climate-related financial disclosures. This paper explores how different narratives and institutional dynamics explain the failure to produce guidance on accounting for emission rights. Design/methodology/approach This paper mobilises the notion of field-configuring events to examine a sequence of six events between 2003 and 2016, including four public consultations and two dialogues between standard setters. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of documents produced in this space that investigates how different practices and narratives configured the field's positions, agenda, and meaning systems. Findings Accounting for emission rights was gradually decoupled from climate change and carbon markets, relegated to the research pipeline, and forgotten. The obstacles that the IASB and EFRAG found in presenting themselves as central in the recurring events, the excess of representations, and the increasingly technical and abstract debates eroded the 2003 momentum for regulation, making the different initiatives to revitalise the project vulnerable and open to scrutiny. Lukes (2021) refers to nondecision-making to express that some issues are suffocated before they are expressed. Originality/value The regulation of accounting for emission rights, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, provides some insights into the different narrative mechanisms that, materialising in specific times and spaces, draw regulatory attention to particular accounting issues, which are problematised and, eventually, forgotten. This study also illustrates that identifying interests is problematic as actors shift from alternative positions over a long period. The case examined also raises some doubts about the previous effectiveness of international standard setters in dealing with matters of connectivity between the environment and finance, as is the case for accounting for emissions rights.

Keywords: Emission rights Accounting regulation IASB Field-configuring events Carbon Paper type Research; Emission rights; Accounting regulation; IASB; Field-configuring events; Carbon Paper type Research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-07-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04686904v1
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Published in Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 2024, 37 (9), pp.216-247. ⟨10.1108/AAAJ-07-2022-5946⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04686904

DOI: 10.1108/AAAJ-07-2022-5946

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