 The role of science-based targets on carbon mitigation: Addressing the tension between net zero anxiety and economic growthJingduan Li, Xuhui Peng and Huan Zhang The British Accounting Review, 2025, vol. 57, issue 2 Abstract: Despite the growing importance of science-based targets (SBTs), our knowledge of their impact on corporate decarbonisation commitment is extremely limited due to inadequate research. To address this gap, we investigate the relationship between SBTs and corporate carbon reduction. Our empirical results reveal the following insights: First, the adoption of an SBT leads to significant subsequent carbon reduction in our sample companies. Second, decarbonisation does not occur until SBTs have been adopted for several years. Third, our findings show that the adoption of SBTs does not harm these companies’ profitability. Overall, our results suggest that SBTs are long-term investments that do not generate immediate but long-term and more sustainable outcomes. In sum, SBTs seem to be a strategy that can help management achieve a win-win situation: achieving a carbon reduction target without reducing economic growth. This justifies the need to study SBTs in future research in the field of carbon-accounting. Keywords: Science-based targets; Corporate decarbonisation; Corporate profitability; The Paris Agreement (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bracre:v:57:y:2025:i:2:s0890838924002713 DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2024.101491 Access Statistics for this article The British Accounting Review is currently edited by Nathan Lael Joseph and Alan Lowe More articles in The British Accounting Review from Elsevier |
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