Now Available: Greenhouse Gas Measurement & Management Journal

Greenhouse Gas Measurement & Management brings together information on the application of methods and techniques to estimate, measure, account and audit greenhouse gases. It presents conceptual, methodological and empirical analyses of policy-relevant metrics related to the management of greenhouse gases, and their impacts for industry, government and international organisations, with an emphasis on applied research.

About the journal
The world is now beginning to recognize the fundamental role of Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) to the success of any action to address climate change and the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that cause it. As the negotiations and legislative processes stutter, there is still an urgency to develop an infrastructure necessary to support real action. Further, despite an extensive literature on climate policy and technology, the literature on how best to manage GHG emissions is surprisingly limited.

In this present context, a new journal, published by Earthscan in cooperation with the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, has been launched to fill a gaping void. Greenhouse Gas Measurement & Management focuses on the infrastructure to support future GHG mitigation policies by providing a scholarly forum for both academic researchers and GHG professionals. It covers the application of the science, engineering, and economic principles of GHGs with the aim of improving the way society mitigates the anthropogenic causes of global climate change. This includes concentrating on developing and providing reliable performance metrics related to GHG emissions and removals and managing activities that reduce GHG emissions to and/or increase their removals from the atmosphere.

Contents for Greenhouse Gas Measurement & Management Issue 1.1

Letter
Welcome to Greenhouse Gas Measurement and Management
Authors: Michael Gillenwater and Tinus Pulles

Editorial
Greenhouse Gas Measurement and Management
Author: Tinus Pulles

Commentaries
Public Access to Comprehensive GHG Mitigation Information: The Example of Climate Relevant Investments
Author: Jochen Harnisch

Filling a gap in climate change education and scholarship
Author: Michael Gillenwater

Research Articles
The Global N2O Budget Revisited
Authors: Alfi Syakila and Carolien Kroeze

An Output-based Intensity Approach for Crediting Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Agriculture: Explanation and Policy Implications
Authors: Brian C. Murray and Justin S. Baker

NAMA crediting: How to assess offsets from and additionality of policy-based mitigation actions in developing countries
Authors: Yuri Okubo, Daisuke Hayashi and Axel Michaelowa

MRV under the UN Climate Regime – Paper Tiger or Catalyst for Continual Improvement?
Authors: Anne Arquit and Melinda Kimble

Urban GHG inventories, target setting and mitigation achievements: How German cities fail to outperform their country
Author: Maike Sippel

Stochastic income statement planning as a basis for risk assessment in the context of emissions trading
Authors: Henry Dannenberg and Wilfried Ehrenfeld

Book Review:
The Economics of the Yasuni` initiative. Climate Change as if thermodynamics mattered
Review by Marco Buttazzoni

UNEP Presents Emissions Gap Report | COP16 Press Center

Scientists say global reduction targets must be ambitious to take effect.

Ambitious global targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could potentially keep the Earth’s temperature from rising to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, said a panel of scientists working with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) on Thursday.

The group presented its “Emissions Gap Report,” a study by scientists from 25 leading institutions in 15 countries and headed by UNEP, the European Union’s Climate Fund and Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology (INE). The report aims to examine various emissions reduction targets outlined by 85 nations in the Copenhagen Accord drafted last year to influence discussions at the COP16/CMP6 conference in Cancun.

UNEP’s chief scientist Joseph Alcamo, said that emissions need to be around 44 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020 to prevent global temperatures from breaching a dangerous level of warming. Failure to act could raise levels to 56 Gt, creating a gap between actual levels and targets equal to the total amount of GHG emissions from the world’s energy supply sector.

“On one hand, the glass is half empty, in that there is going to be a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between temperature targets and expected emissions if we do not act immediately,” he said.

“On the other hand, the glass is also half full, because we found in our study that issues being considered on the negotiations have to do with low versus high ambition pledges and rules for complying with pledges have the potential to greatly narrow this gap, to considerably narrow this gap.”

Fresh off the press: Firm relocation as adaptive response to climate change and weather extremes

Our newest publication titled ‘Firm relocation as adaptive response to climate change and weather extremes’ is now available from Global Environmental Change.  The paper suggests that climate change might create the necessity for firm relocation away from highly affected regions.  It develops a framework for assessing firm relocation due to climate change impacts and discusses the relocation framework in relation to two case examples, the Australian pastoral industry and electricity generation in Victoria, Australia, which is one of the most bushfire-prone regions of the world.

Australia and Climate Change: The Future of Queensland’s Transport Sector

The transportation sector in Queensland is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, especially under a high emissions scenario with continual reliance on fossil-fuels (such as the IPCC A1FI scenario).

By Aziemah Haji Abdullah, Jose Tomas Videla Labayru, Matthew Herington, Siqi Huang

Three key issues need to be considered when planning for the future of Queensland’s transport sector – climate change and weather extremes, population movement and emerging legislation.

First, climate change and any increases in the number and/or severity of weather extremes such as cyclones and heat waves test the resilience of infrastructure systems. Weather extremes have the ability to significantly disrupt Queensland’s transport solutions, potentially closing off roads, rerouting transport activities, placing increased strain on other transport routes and affecting economic activities. A revision of the current transport system would be required to proactively adapt the system to climate change impacts and determine the steps and investments needed.

Second, trends are showing a movement of people so South East Queensland (SEQ) and Queensland’s coastal areas with projection of a 60% increase in the SEQ population by 2030. Assuming no adaptation, Queensland’s population increase is taking place in an area already highly vulnerable to climate change. An increase in population leads to more coastal development, exacerbating exposure of property and infrastructure to climate change impacts and the risk of extremes. A 60% increase in population compounds vulnerabilities. To mitigate impacts, Queensland will need to implement standards and codes which allow for increases in number and severity of weather extremes.

A third issue is the emergence of more stringent climate change legislation. It will have to be seen to what extent more stringent emission reduction policies will be introduced in the future, requiring Queensland’s transport sector to revise policy, implement more efficient operations, introduce innovative transport sector solutions, and create and implement pro-active planning measures and encourage community involvement. 

The key challenge for the sector will be to balance the need for rapid infrastructure development with long-term climate adaptation needs.

This research was undertaken as part of a future planning excercise in the postgraduate course TIMS7328 Strategies for Business Sustainability and Innovation at UQ Business School to examine the vulnerability of Queensland’s transportation sector to climate change.

Beyond Adaptation: Resilience for Business in Light of Climate Change and Weather Extremes

Beyond Adaptation: Resilience for Business in Light of Climate Change and Weather Extremes
• Article

Business & Society
Linnenluecke, M.K.; Griffiths, A.

Scientific findings forecast that one of the major consequences of human-induced climate change and global warming is a greater occurrence of extreme weather events with potentially catastrophic effects for organizations, industries, and society. Current management and adaptation approaches typically focus on economic factors of competition, such as technology and innovation. Although offering useful insights, these approaches are potentially ill equipped to deal with any increases in drastic changes in the natural environment. This article argues that discussions on organizational adaptation need to be broadened and that new conceptual and practical approaches are needed to incorporate the effects of climate change and a greater occurrence of weather extremes into corporate strategy and decision making. The authors advance the notion that a resilience framework might provide insights into dealing with new types of environmental change. They contend that by developing resilience, organizations can develop resources and capabilities to avoid or minimize organizational collapse and to reorganize in light of discontinuities associated with climate change and weather extremes. Implications for organizational practice and research are discussed.

Employees key to corporate sustainability

Targeted employee programs are crucial to corporations successfully implementing sustainability practices say University of Queensland (UQ) Business School experts.

Martina Linnenluecke, a PhD researcher, and Professor Andrew Griffiths have developed insights into factors enabling corporations to realise and adopt sustainability-oriented culture change and into barriers that might hinder the uptake of such change.

Employees are paramount to successfully implementing corporate-wide changes to sustainability, according to Ms Linnenluecke.

“If individuals or groups of employees are not convinced by sustainability practices or if employee actions and motivations are discouraged by a rigid organisational culture, it will be hard to get changes made corporate wide,” she said.

“There are often significant differences within an organisation in how employees understand corporate sustainability. We therefore advise corporation leaders and managers to understand how their employees perceive and understand sustainability before undertaking any change management, and to identify why there might be differences in employees’ understandings. This information can be then used to develop more sophisticated and tailored programs aimed at educating their staff.

“Through our research, we found differences existed in how employees understood corporate sustainability. These differences can be explained partly due to the existence of corporate subcultures and individual differences in awareness of the organisation’s sustainability practices.

“In particular, we found that employees from a subculture with a stronger emphasis on hierarchical and bureaucratic values emphasised an economic understanding of corporate sustainability, meaning that these employees perceived that their organisation did not place much value on the pursuit of environmental or social goals.”

To successfully implement sustainable practices, the pair advised corporations to:

• survey employees’ understanding of sustainability,
• identify why employees might understand sustainability differently,
• identify any potential barriers to the uptake of corporate sustainability practices,
• develop a corporate strategy for sustainability,
• formulate clear corporate guidelines,
• communicate strategy and guidelines to employees, 
• execute a tailored employee education program, and
• incorporate sustainability goals into employee performance objectives.

Ms Linnenluecke also suggested corporations move away from hierarchical organisational structures and consider environmental and social as well as economic sustainability.

“Corporations with lower levels of hierarchy can adapt and change much more easily. Corporations with a focus on flexibility and innovation can involve employees and other stakeholder groups in decision making.

“In general, an organisation which is very open to outside views and information is concerned with what is going on in the environment and incorporates this into their decision making.”

Investment in sustainability by corporations can result in long term economic gain in cost and resource reductions, increased efficiencies and brand perception, as well as the adoption of innovative technologies leading to competitive advantages, according to Ms Linnenluecke.

The latest research paper of Ms Linnenluecke and Professor Griffiths was recently published in the Journal of World Business.

Organisations should invest in assessing climate vulnerability

Organisations that apply a “wait and see” approach to thinking about the impacts of climate change on their business might reach a point where it is too late to adapt, according to a University of Queensland (UQ) Business School researcher.

PhD researcher Martina Linnenluecke examined the relationship between business activities and expected changes in climate and weather conditions due to climate change in her thesis.

Ms Linnenluecke said those organisations and sectors that had large-scale infrastructure in disaster-prone regions or were reliant on stable climatic conditions should invest resources in assessing their own vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather events, and looking at what flow-on effects might exist.

“There’s a general awareness that climate change has emerged as a strategic issue but overall, organisations haven’t yet built up the capability to systematically consider the organisational implications of climate change and changes in trends of weather extremes,” she said.

“What organisations can do initially is to use the expertise and information that is already out there to try to identify hot spots and regions likely to be affected by climate change and to see if these regions in any way coincide with any organisational activity.”

Ms Linnenluecke said an organisation’s vulnerabilities might also extend to vulnerabilities in the organisation’s supplier base or value chain.

She said business needed to start thinking beyond climate change adaptation towards building up resilience.

“The issue with adaptation is it usually takes place in response to something that is known or expected — we adapt when we know it makes sense to adapt,” the UQ Business School researcher said.

“Climate change has the potential to affect organisations in ways that are unseen.”

Ms Linnenluecke recommends organisations use a resilience framework to thinking about their exposure and response to climate change and changes in the number and severity of weather extremes.

“Organisations should think about their ability to resist certain impacts and to recover from others, but also to ask ‘what is the amount of change we are able to withstand?’” she said.

“After an event, there’s a lot of pressure to quickly restore the status quo, to get the power on again for example, to get things happening, but this is not necessarily the best decision long-term.

“For example, what are the implications of an energy company putting power lines back in exact same location after an event? That might create more vulnerability if a similar event occurs there again, however moving the power lines or putting them underground might be a longer-term solution.”

Ms Linnenluecke said a major challenge to building organisational resilience was a trade off between slack resources and efficiency.

“Slack resources are excess resources and probably not needed on an operational, day-to-day basis, but a certain degree of slack can provide organisations with the flexibility to respond to any changes.”

Ms Linnenluecke’s dissertation research was supervised by Professor Andrew Griffiths, who is one of Australia’s leading experts in sustainable business strategy.

She and Professor Griffiths will have their paper “Beyond Adaptation: Resilience for  Business in Light of Climate Change and Weather Extremes” in a forthcoming edition of international journal Business & Society.

Corporate sustainability and organizational culture

Corporate sustainability and organizational culture
• Article

Journal of World Business
Linnenluecke, M.K.; Griffiths, A.

The concept of corporate sustainability has gained importance in recent years in both organizational theory and practice. While there still exists a lack of clarity on what constitutes corporate sustainability and how to best achieve it, many scholars suggest that the pathway for the adoption of corporate sustainability principles leads via the adoption of a sustainability-oriented organizational culture. In this paper, we provide a closer examination of this suggested link between the cultural orientation of an organization and the pursuit of corporate sustainability principles. Specifically, we seek to assess (1) what constitutes a sustainability-oriented organizational culture, (2) whether it is possible for organizations to display a unified sustainability-oriented organizational culture, and (3) whether organizations can become more sustainable through culture change. Directions and challenges for practical management and future research are identified and outlined.

Researchers win all-Academy award

Two UQ Business School researchers have won the Carolyn Dexter Best International Paper Award at this year’s Academy of Management Conference in Anaheim.

PhD researcher Martina Linnenluecke and Professor Andrew Griffiths won the prestigious award for their paper entitled: “Organizational Adaptation and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events”, along with co-author Monika Winn from the University of Victoria.

The Carolyn Dexter Award is a prestigious all-Academy award given to the paper that best meets the objective of internationalizing the Academy of Management. According to the selection criteria for the award, it is essential that the paper “offers new insights, is rich in observation and employs creative methodologies”.

According to Ms Linnenluecke, the paper takes up the debate on the influences of human-induced climate change and global warming on business organizations.

“The paper examines the relationship between business activities and expected changes in climate and weather conditions,” she said.

“Organizations in several areas such as agriculture, fishery, forestry, and tourism or infrastructure management, do not currently possess suitable resources, capabilities and competencies for ongoing climate change adaptation and resilience to extreme weather events, despite having significant competitive environment adaptive capabilities.

“The paper develops a wider perspective, and lists particular challenges associated with, the organizational impacts of the natural environment.”