Abstract
This study analyzes Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13) which urges action to combat climate change and its impacts. This study focuses mainly on goal 13.2 which establishes the incorporation of measures related to climate change policies, strategies, and plans. This objective includes information on climate change adaptation strategies, greenhouse gas emissions, and their scopes 1 (direct emissions), 2 (indirect emissions), and 3 (Other Emissions). This study is based on the legitimacy theory and the approach of symbolic and substantive information disclosure and the greenwashing and SDG-washing concepts. We designed two disclosure quality indexes for SDG 13 (qualitative SDG13 index and quantitative SDG13 index) through content analysis of the sustainability reports of 60 listed Colombian companies. Our findings suggest that there is a significant gap between the disclosure quality of symbolic (qualitative) and substantive (quantitative) information, thus generating impacts in relation to climate action at the regional and sectoral levels. The sectors with the highest disclosure quality are environmentally sensitive industries. At the regional level, there is evidence of heterogeneous behavior due to the region's social, economic, and political characteristics and their little connection with government climate change plans. Our results are useful to understand and identify the territorial context through business behavior factors related to climate change. These results also reveal necessary elements so that territorial governments can efficiently prevent, mitigate, and adapt measures that guarantee public health and the life of their inhabitants by managing resilient and habitable territories. This study has implications that go beyond the business sphere. The results should be understood as a contribution to the country's low carbon strategies, low greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon neutrality by the year 2050.
Published Version
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