Collaborative Research: Corporate Net Zero Goals for Decarbonization

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To mitigate climate change, a growing coalition of governments, businesses, and other institutions have adopted “net zero” goals and engaged in decarbonization, an energy transition process that results from the replacement of fuels with high carbon content by those with low carbon content. This project examines three interrelated questions: Why are some companies communicating their adoption of different types of net zero goals while others are not? What activities are associated with net zero goals? What are the outcomes of net zero communication and activities on firms’ financial performance and media coverage? This project benefits society by exploring the factors that shape businesses’ involvement in the development of the market for clean energy.The project constructs three datasets. First, a corporate decarbonization communication dataset includes all corporate communications related to net zero and climate change mitigation goals for U.S. Fortune 1000 companies during the 2015-2024 period. Researchers collect these data by searching firms’ websites and annual reports and coding corporate communication of general climate change mitigation statements and specific net zero goals. Second, investigators collect data on corporate decarbonization activities by applying text analysis to the corporate decarbonization communication dataset and by collecting information from third parties. Third, a corporate decarbonization media coverage dataset draws from all articles from major newspapers that mention climate change and net zero during the 2015-2024 period. Researchers extract the full text of all climate and environment-related major news articles associated with each of these firms, and filter, clean, and code these articles. These are then converted into annual indicators and analyzed using panel-based statistical methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.