Mária Csutora

Proposing a beneficiary-based shared responsibility approach for calculating national carbon accounts during the post-Kyoto era

Considerable progress has been made in Europe towards cutting GHG emissions during the last decade, but this achievement is partly due to the delocalization of manufacturing industries to emerging countries. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the current emission accounting method is production-based and cannot fully capture this effect. The use of such a method is clearly unfavourable for emerging countries and could lead to difficulties in engaging them in climate policy negotiations. The consumption-based approach represents the other extreme in apportioning emission responsibilities. This article proposes the beneficiary-based shared responsibility approach, which outperforms previous methods in terms of scientific justification and political acceptability. Consumer countries benefit from enjoying the product itself, while producing countries benefit from the production process, which provides them with employment, government income, and company profit. Thus, emissions related to the material throughput used to produce exported products should be allocated to the final place of consumption. The income of production activities benefits the producer country, so emissions associated with these values should be allocated to them. The main reason for taking this accounting approach is that the responsibility for emissions and the benefits of enjoying a product should not be decoupled.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management and Environmental Management Accounting

Interests in and understanding of supply chain management are growing, along with a number of catalysts which include: reduction in trade barriers; development of logistics structures as a counterforce to globalisation; and reduced geographical spread in business. This raises a set of challenges for sustainable supply chain information management which is explored here, including: confidentiality and business records; cost-management and eco-efficiency; socio-cultural distance; complexity; and the need for rapid responses to the situation when a crisis occurs. These challenges lead to a critique of conventional cost management and the need to make sure credible information is provided in the supply chain relationship. A comprehensive Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) framework reveals that the links between sustainability management accounting and different decision settings are not clear in the supply chain relationship. The papers presented in this book provide a guide towards improved knowledge of EMA and supply chain accounting interrelationships, challenges and potential successes.

Designing Lifestyle-specific Food Policies Based on Nutritional Requirements and Ecological Footprints.

Abstract Expanded understanding of the trends and determinants of food consumption is needed to reduce the ecological impacts of the contemporary agro-food system while also being attentive to broader issues pertaining to health and the environment. Incorporating these additional aspects and formulating meaningful dietary recommendations is a major challenge. This article seeks to highlight differences in ecological footprint (EF) by activity level for various social groups to meet suggested physiological requirements by nutritionists versus actual food consumption. The study is based on a combination of healthy diet requirements (as expressed by national guidelines) and a survey of a representative sample of 1,013 Hungarian adults using a bottom-up approach for calculating EFs. Students and women with small children have a higher than average food-related EF due to their higher nutritional needs. At the same time, the elderly are characterized by lower footprints. Perhaps most interesting is our finding that people with sedentary forms of employment have higher food footprints than those with jobs that require physical labor. We offer recommendations for food-policy planning based on encouraging dietary changes for individuals, differentiated by the nature of their work. The research suggests that dietary policy that improves health often has environmental benefits.

Consumer income and its relation to sustainable food consumption – obstacle or opportunity?

The consumption of food is associated with significant environmental impacts, and the disposable incomes of individuals and households play an important role in what food is consumed. It may be assumed that the higher the income, the more food consumed. However, it may also be supposed that people with higher incomes are more likely to lead healthier lifestyles and therefore consume more moderately. This analysis is based on food consumption data from the Household budget and living conditions survey of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, combined with the latest database from the Global Footprint Network. Results show that a higher level of consumption is able to offset a healthier consumption structure. For the upper three income deciles ecological footprints for food consumption are not notably higher, as the individuals in these groups use their higher incomes to purchase and consume more fruit and vegetables. A scenario analysis is carried out along the income deciles to illustrate the changes needed to move towards a healthier food consumption structure. Results highlight that the ecological footprint of food consumption is not equally distributed among the income groups, and that middle–upper level income groups have a greater responsibility to decrease their food consumption. The footprints of this group would be decreased to a greater extent by consuming healthier diets than they would with lower income deciles. Policy measures that are employed to reduce the ecological footprint should take into account the responsibility of the different socio-economic levels. Correspondingly, identifying and targeting social groups by income level may be a suitable approach for better communicating about sustainable consumption.

Using EMA to Benchmark Environmental Costs—Theory and Experience from Four Countries Through the UNIDO TEST Project

The paper reports the results of the UNIDO TEST project (De Palma and Dobes 2003) as a consequence of simultaneously introducing environmental management accounting (EMA), cleaner production assessment (CPA). and environmental management systems (EMS) in four countries of the Danube river basin. The implementation of CPA was instrumental in identifying non-product output costs. The analysis of materials and energy flows provided the basis for assessing and comparing the performance of the production processes against the standards defined by the technical specifications of the existing technology and against the standards of best available technology (BAT) or theoretical standards. This categorization showed which part of the non-product output costs could be controlled in the short-term, medium-term, and long-term. On the basis of this analysis, companies were enabled to make strategic decisions such as to phase out products and plan new investments in environmental technologies through a step-by-step approach. Broadening the scope of EMA and developing the necessary information system within the framework of the EMS were immediate results of the project.

Corporate Carbon and Climate Accounting

While climate change policies and negotiations are developing and scientist are urging for more action, in most countries progress remains on a low level and the macro figures indicate that climate change becomes even more critical. As a reaction to this, some advanced business leaders have initiated various actions and projects with their companies, and various regulations have been introduced by governments with varying levels of effectiveness. In this context of a mix of international initiatives, media attention, customer irritation, diverse regulatory changes and partial political lethargy, ever more companies are challenged to identify and reduce their exposure to climate change issues. Whereas the reduction of climate change emissions is an important topic, it has also become obvious that climate change is not just a future risk but is already happening. This invokes adaptation activities in addition to mitigation strategies and measures. A basic requirement to design the corporate climate strategy is the knowledge about the company’s exposure as well as about options, effects and costs of emission S. Schaltegger (&) D. Zvezdov Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM), Leuphana University Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany e-mail: schaltegger@uni.leuphana.de D. Zvezdov Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany e-mail: dimitar.zvezdov@fau.de E. Günther TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany e-mail: ema@mailbox.tu-dresden.de M. Csutora Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary e-mail: maria.csutora@uni-corvinus.hu I. Alvarez University of Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain e-mail: igor.alvarez@ehu.eus

Twenty Years of Carbon Accounting and Auditing – A Review and Outlook

This paper aims to provide an overview of the key themes in the development of carbon accounting and auditing over the past twenty years. The evolution of the field since the Kyoto Agreement of 1997 has been divided into four stages. The need to account for and disclosure of greenhouse gas-related emissions of industrial organizations has emerged parallel to growing concerns about climate change, and international and national policy developments in the field have followed. Carbon accounting is an emerging field of business economics and covers a wide range of activities, including the measurement, calculation, monitoring, reporting and auditing of greenhouse gas emissions at organizational, process, product or supply chain levels. Various initiatives (such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or the Carbon Disclosure Project) motivate and assist industrial organizations in accounting for and reporting their achievements in the field. Different methodologies of carbon accounting (bottom-up, top-down and hybrid) enable industrial organizations to quantify their emissions; however, some trade-offs emerge when choosing among these approaches. Carbon accounting should not be an isolated task for businesses. On the contrary, there is a strong need to integrate carbon accounting issues into different functional fields in order to achieve both corporate and climate policy goals.

May spirituality lead to reduced ecological footprint? Conceptual framework and empirical analysis

Living a happy and satisfied life while staying within ecological limits of Earth is a challenge humanity must face during this century. As spirituality impacts our lives in both material and non-material ways, we may reasonably suppose that spiritual beliefs also have an impact on how one thinks about environmental degradation, how likely individuals will behave in a pro-environmental way and how it impacts ones ecological footprint. This article explores the links between a value-driven life and ecological impact, both theoretically and empirically. Our results suggest that traditional religious thinking, in-my-way spiritualism and green value-driven atheism are associated with an increased level of subjective wellbeing, while religious people also seem to be featured by a reduced level of ecological footprint. Materialism is supposed to be associated with a high level of ecological footprint and a low level of subjective wellbeing.

Sustainability Management in Hungary

In Hungary the culture for sustainability management is quite diverse. Even large companies are usually subsidiaries or suppliers to large multinational companies and the influence of buyers and owners is substantial. As a result there are a number of different traditions in sustainability management in the country and correspondingly relatively few typical cultural attributes. The impacts of investors and shareholders are given high scores in the survey, while consumers are given a low score in motivating companies to pursue sustainability management. Community also has little influence because community involvement in sustainability management does not have a long tradition in Hungary. Thus two-way communication and participative methods of stakeholder management are less common. The responses show that Hungarian companies manage most environmental issues, especially emissions, more closely than the international average. Sustainability management tools are broadly known and applied in the country, and the general satisfaction with the number and level of tools indicates that there is no need for further development here. Basically, Hungarian companies are more sceptical towards the benefits of the implementation of corporate sustainability. This is especially true with regard to the prospective positive impacts on cost reduction, innovation, employee motivation as well as enhancing and safeguarding corporate reputation. In sum, Hungarian companies have already demonstrated expertise in most fields of sustainability management, but the development of a more participative collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders in sustainability management is still needed.

The Mismanagement of Environmental Conflicts

During the Communist regime, companies conflicts with the public were hidden. The public did not have the right to express their objection. Recent Hungarian law, however, supports peoples right to influence decisions that have an impact on their lives, but attitudes change slowly. In this article, I show the typical methods of companies mismanagement of environmental conflicts. The first part of the article concentrates on strategic issues, and the second one emphasizes mistakes in communication with local communities. There are signs that Hungarian companies have already started to learn their lesson, but they also need help to face the new situation of the post-Communist era. Conflict theory and conflict resolution techniques may help them to deal with communication problems and to reach win-win solutions. Although not unknown, facilitation is not a common technique in Hungary yet. This means that there is potential for its development.