Research seminar: Calibrating a metrological apparatus: The reliable measurement of a public sustainability target

Title: Calibrating a metrological apparatus: The reliable measurement of a public sustainability target
Emilia Cederberg (SSE) and Ebba Sjögren (SBS, SSE)

Opponent/reviewer: Cristiana Parisi

ABSTRACT
A recurrent claim in the literature has been that the substantive realization of sustainability ambitions is hampered, in part, by problems of measurement. This paper considers the issue of measurability in the context of carbon accounting. Specifically, the everyday work to make reliable measurement of a public sustainability target for CO2 emissions was investigated through a single-company case study of Omikron, a large multinational consumer goods company widely acclaimed for its sustainability practices. The historical development and contemporary operation of a distributed and coordinated measurement of CO2emissions was traced using interviews with corporate sustainability staff, general managers and staff, in combination with internal and public documents. Building on concepts developed by Mallard (1998) for the analysis of metrological devices in scientific work, it was found that the measurement of CO2 emissions was calibrated using a diverse array of resources: rules, instruments, referent metrics and processes of intercomparison. In addition to these previously described forms of metrological calibration, the formulation of a public CO2 emissions target was also found to serve as both an aspirational construct, as conventionally understood in relation to performance evaluation, and as a representational construct in support of more robust measurement. These findings suggest that accounting can become material by other means than regulatory standardization or enrolment of influential actors, which has previously been described in the literature. The paper adds to the growing literature on the micro-processes of sustainability accounting within organizations by studying a case where such measurement was principally uncontested and practically established.

Presented by: Ebba Sjögren (SBS, SSE)

Authors: Emilia Cederberg (SSE) and Ebba Sjögren (SBS, SSE)

Reviewer/opponent: Cristiana Parisi

Agenda:
13:00-13:05 Intro by Kim Sundtoft Hald
13:05-13:30 Presentation of paper ” Calibrating a metrological apparatus: The reliable measurement of a public sustainability target” by Ebba Sjögren (SBS, SSE)
13:30-13:45 Critical constructive review by Christiana Parisi
13:45-14:00 Review comments and open discussion by ALL
 

About Ebba Sjögren
Associate Professor Ebba Sjögren joined Stockholm Business School (Accounting Section) in the Spring of 2017. She holds a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics (2006). Her present research interests center on the role of accounting in experts’ decision-making, and in the control and coordination of professional work. An on-going project funded by the Swedish Research Council (2015-2018) investigates the decision usefulness of financial reporting information from a behavioral user perspective. A second project, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (2017-2020), studies valuation and price formation in markets for in-patient pharmaceutical treatments across four national markets. In a previous project, funded by the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation, Sjögren investigated how a "risk-based approach" to anti-money laundering regulation was implemented in three industries: financial services, audit and law. Ebba Sjögren is the main supervisor for Emilia Cederberg (Accounting, SSE), and affiliated to the Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (Misum) and the academic think tank Leading Health Care. 

For more: https://www.su.se/english/profiles/esjgr-1.332683