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1. Introduction
Corporate carbon accounting is a relatively new research area dealing with impacts on environmental capital and has received particular attention through the development of carbon emission trading markets raising issues such as the recognition of carbon trading permits in the balance sheet (MacKenzie, 2009), carbon price development (Nelson et al. , 2011) or the establishment of carbon registers (Kolk et al. , 2008). Corporate carbon accounting, addressing the environmental dimension of sustainability, has also been studied for different regulatory, professional and societal conditions and applications (Ascui and Lovell, 2011; Bowen and Wittneben, 2011; Schaltegger and Csutora, 2012) by highlighting priorities of different stakeholders involved in carbon accounting and standardization processes.
Because corporate carbon reporting is important for external stakeholders to receive a true and fair representation of an organization's carbon footprint and efforts in emissions reduction, it requires comparable and accurate accounting of carbon emissions, similar to financial reporting rules (Mizuguchi, 2008; Cotter et al. , 2011; Haigh and Shapiro, 2012; Schaltegger and Csutora, 2012). On the other side, organizational management issues of carbon accounting are highly relevant with regard to decision-making, performance management and what is reported (Burritt et al. , 2011). In contrast to reporting (Mizuguchi, 2008; Andrew and Cortese, 2011; Cotter et al. , 2011; Haigh and Shapiro, 2012; Hrasky, 2012), company-internal issues of carbon management accounting have so far rarely been empirically investigated in depth. An exception is the paper of Burritt et al. (2011) who examine internal carbon management accounting practices in German companies.
The design of carbon management accounting can be of strategic importance for organizations trying to measure and manage their carbon performance (Hendrichs and Busch, 2012; Schaltegger and Csutora, 2012). Managers may expect that carbon management accounting helps them identify and assess the potentials of different activities to reduce the company's emissions and related economic impacts. The management of carbon performance requires a sound accounting management system which links carbon management with the business, its competitive strategy and that integrates carbon information with economic business information and carbon reporting (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2006). This is why this paper examines how different corporate approaches dealing with carbon management accounting influence the measures of the total carbon footprint of a corporation and the carbon performance representation. The...