Abstract
As a significant contributor to carbon emissions, global logistics companies are under scrutiny from various stakeholders, and respond by disclosing carbon-related information in the form of carbon reports. Carbon disclosure is, however, a mainly voluntary practice that allows for a broad range of interpretation from the management field, which leads to different approaches to the measurement and reporting of carbon-related information. From a theoretical perspective, these different carbon-disclosure approaches in global logistics companies can be attributed to the underlying construct of competing logics, namely the market and the sustainability logic. While competing logics are frequently discussed in the current literature, little is known about their influence on shaping carbon-disclosure practices. The aim of this paper is to examine the similarities and differences in the measurement and reporting of carbon-related information in order to capture the underlying logic that drives carbon-disclosure behaviour in the global logistics industry. We adopt an interpretative content analysis approach and examine the carbon-related information using the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reports of DHL, FDX and UPS. The analysis reveals significant differences in the applied carbon-disclosure strategies, as well as in the degree of transparency between the three companies. The results also indicate that the carbon-disclosure practices of FDX are dominated by a market logic that emphasizes the economic benefits of carbon reductions, while DHL and UPS have prioritized the sustainability logic to gain a competitive advantage.
Highlights
The risk of climate change has put sustainability high on the corporate agenda, and companies are under scrutiny from various stakeholders to disclose information about their carbon-related activities [1]
That while the market logic is driven by economic gains, the sustainability logic within the global logistics industry is influenced by legitimacy-driven outcomes that go beyond ‘pure’ cost savings initiatives
The results provide interesting insights into the carbon-reporting behaviour of DHL, Federal Express (FDX) and United Parcel Service (UPS) in the global logistics industry
Summary
The risk of climate change has put sustainability high on the corporate agenda, and companies are under scrutiny from various stakeholders to disclose information about their carbon-related activities [1]. Carbon disclosure is still mainly a voluntary organisational practice, and global logistics companies can choose which tools or guidelines to apply in order to measure environmental and carbon performance [4] This voluntary approach allows for a broad range of interpretation of carbon-related information, and leads to significant differences in carbon measurement and reporting, the operations within global logistics companies can be regarded as broadly similar. The majority of existing studies address carbon issues either only partly, or do not focus on logistics companies, pointing to a need to examine carbon-disclosure practices within the logistics and transportation sector Such an examination and analysis of carbon-disclosure strategies in the logistics and transportation sector complements the existing literature and provides new insights into this emerging field of carbon management
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