This paper examines the effect of awareness regarding climate change risks and opportunities on the proactive carbon management systems of U.S. S&P 500 companies. We develop our hypotheses based on institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and prospect theory. Our findings indicate a significant positive association between our self-constructed measurement of company risk and opportunity awareness and carbon management practices. We observe that financially constrained firms exhibit a lesser response to both climate change risk and opportunity awareness. Additionally, we note that firms with low profitability are more responsive to climate change risks, whereas we found no evidence linking climate change opportunity awareness to carbon management systems, consistent with prospect theory. Finally, we investigate the impact of carbon management systems on carbon reduction performance to examine the effectiveness of such awareness. In summary, this study provides the first evidence of how awareness of climate risk and opportunity influences corporate carbon management practices in a U.S. setting. Our findings imply that awareness serves as the initial step in prompting positive actions to manage risks and capitalize on opportunities. These results offer novel insights and information relevant to the recent policy initiative aimed at transitioning climate risk disclosure from voluntary to mandatory.

中文翻译：

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揭示气候风险和机遇的强度：意识和有效性


本文探讨了气候变化风险和机遇意识对美国标准普尔 500 强公司主动碳管理系统的影响。我们根据制度理论、利益相关者理论和前景理论提出假设。我们的研究结果表明，我们自行构建的公司风险和机会意识衡量标准与碳管理实践之间存在显着的正相关关系。我们观察到，财务受限的企业对气候变化风险和机会意识的反应较小。此外，我们注意到，盈利能力较低的公司对气候变化风险的反应更灵敏，但我们没有发现任何证据将气候变化机会意识与碳管理系统联系起来，这与前景理论一致。最后，我们调查碳管理体系对碳减排绩效的影响，以检验这种意识的有效性。总之，这项研究提供了第一个证据，证明气候风险和机遇意识如何影响美国环境下的企业碳管理实践。我们的研究结果表明，意识是促使采取积极行动来管理风险和利用机遇的第一步。这些结果提供了与近期旨在将气候风险披露从自愿披露转变为强制披露的政策举措相关的新颖见解和信息。