Green business: Growth or degrowth to meet IPCC targets? Discussion of an assessment tool: IPCC CAPRO change target

Gulliver Lux (), Emmanuelle Fromont () and Thi Le Hoa Vo ()
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Gulliver Lux: UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal
Emmanuelle Fromont: CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Thi Le Hoa Vo: CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This article questions the prospects for growth or degrowth of companies as a means of preserving the Earth's ecosystem. More specifically, we propose using a carbon productivity indicator in association with the IPCC Carbon Productivity Target (based on UNFCCC work) to assess the genuine ecological impact of corporate economic activity. This indicator was applied to data from 2015 to 2019 for a sample of companies in the SFB 120 index, and results from their classification are compared to the results obtained with indicators that do not take into account the IPCC targets based on UNFCCC work (Scopes). We highlight how a company's economic growth plays a key role in the fight against global warming. We found that a significant share of the companies that usually qualified as green using the Scope 1 and 2 emissions are, in fact, not green (63% and 43% of polluting and low-polluting companies, respectively). We underscore the fact that while green growth still seems possible, the same is true of green degrowth. More specifically, our results advocate for either controlled growth or for slight degrowth in business activity. Lastly, our results open a discussion on degrowth by highlighting how companies in this situation are over-represented among those that meet IPCC objectives.

Keywords: Green growth; Degrowth; IPCC; UNFCCC; Carbon productivity; GHG emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04188747
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Published in Journal of Cleaner Production, 2023, 420, pp.138364. ⟨10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.138364⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04188747

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.138364

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