John Byrd, Elizabeth S Cooperman, Ken Bettenhausen
Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, Volume 15 Issue 4, January 2014, Pages 271-289

This paper examines attributes affecting a corporation’s choice of an intensity-only (carbon emissions relative to sales, production, etc.) versus an absolute carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions goal. We investigate alternative hypotheses for this choice including: 1) a high growth hypothesis whereby high growth companies select an intensity goal, to continue to grow without an absolute emission reduction; 2) a high emissions industrial sector hypothesis where firms in high CO 2 emission industries prefer an intensity goal that is …