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A bibliometric review on carbon accounting in social science during 1997–2020

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A Correction to this article was published on 14 January 2022

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Abstract

A social science perspective to carbon accounting is essential for determining the appropriate allocation of reduction responsibility, and thus contributing to addressing the climate crisis. It is crucial to have a comprehensive review of the literature in this field to better understand how relevant research has evolved, and to identify gaps that future studies need to work on. Based on the bibliographic database from the Web of Science (WOS), we identified 897 publications relevant to carbon accounting in the social sciences published between 1997 and 2020. Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyze the trends and features of carbon accounting research in the social sciences. The results show that international trade has spurred considerable scholarly interest in responsibility allocation from a consumption perspective. IO (input–output) analysis that can be used to derive embodied emissions in trade has therefore become the most popular method in this domain. It is also revealed that few publications have addressed quantification of emissions at organizational level. In consideration of the importance of organizations especially corporations in emission reduction, a shift of priority to this particular area is needed for further research. Carbon label and supply chain have emerged as a subject in keywords analysis, but have not been addressed enough either. To achieve carbon neutrality, solely relying on actions at country and organizational level may not be sufficient. Greener consumption behaviors of the public and individuals could play a remarkable role. Thus, it is important to formulate a consistent framework for labeling carbon embodied in products and investigate the drivers of consumers’ low-carbon choices.

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Notes

  1. The five broad research areas defined by WOS are: Arts & Humanities, Life science & Biomedicine, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, and Technology.

  2. To not miss relevant publications, we include a wildcard (*) in the searching words. The searching words are TS = (“carbon * accounting” OR “Green house gas* accounting” OR “GHG accounting” OR “Greenhouse gas* accounting” OR “C accounting” OR “carbon footprint*”OR “GHG footprint*” OR “Green house gas* footprint*” OR “Greenhouse gas* footprint*” OR “carbon stock*” OR “carbon inventor*” OR “GHG inventor*” OR “Green house gas* inventor*” OR “Greenhouse gas* inventor*”).

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  1. China-UK Low Carbon College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 3 Yinlian Rd, Pudong New District, Shanghai, 201306, People’s Republic of China

    Yikun Zheng, Haishan Yu & Yuquan Zhang

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  1. Yikun Zheng
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  2. Haishan Yu
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Correspondence to Haishan Yu.

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Zheng, Y., Yu, H. & Zhang, Y. A bibliometric review on carbon accounting in social science during 1997–2020. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 9393–9407 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17600-5

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