Collaborative Research: Corporate Net Zero Goals for Decarbonization

为了减缓气候变化，越来越多的政府、企业和其他机构联盟采用了“净零”目标，并参与脱碳，这是一种能源转型过程，其结果是用低碳含量的燃料取代高碳含量的燃料。这个项目研究了三个相互关联的问题：为什么有些公司会传达他们采用不同类型的净零目标，而另一些公司却没有？哪些活动与净零目标相关？净零传播和活动对公司的财务业绩和媒体报道有什么影响？本项目通过探讨企业参与清洁能源市场开发的因素，为社会带来益处。本项目构建了三个数据集。首先，企业脱碳通信数据集包括2015-2024年期间美国财富1000强公司与净零和气候变化减缓目标相关的所有企业通信。研究人员通过搜索公司的网站和年度报告收集这些数据，并对一般气候变化减缓声明和具体净零目标的公司通信进行编码。其次，调查人员通过对企业脱碳通信数据集进行文本分析以及从第三方收集信息来收集有关企业脱碳活动的数据。第三，企业脱碳媒体报道数据集来自2015-2024年期间主要报纸上提到气候变化和净零的所有文章。研究人员提取了与这些公司相关的所有气候和环境相关的主要新闻文章的全文，并对这些文章进行过滤、清理和编码。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.