Determinants of Carbon Emission Disclosure and Reduction in Corporate Real Estate Companies in Nigeria

Abstract

Carbon emission in developing countries has being on the increase in the last few years, from a 33 percent in 1990 to 40 percent in 1997, when the international climate change mitigation treaty of Kyoto Protocol was agreed on, to 55 percent of today’s total global carbon emission. Hence the difficult to manage global warming without the participation of developing nations take tougher actions than presently is the case, even if the developed economies reduce their emissions to zero by 2030.  The need for climate change mitigation in the context of carbon emission reduction through measurement and disclosure has become a sine-qua-non for climate change mitigation in the developing economies. The study detects four determinant factors for carbon emission reduction in the corporate real estate sector of a developing country to include; social factor, economic factor, the financial market factor and the institutional factor. These factors are supported by the agency theory, stakeholder's theory, Signaling theory and the Legitimacy theory. The application of the result is that policies, programs and incentives to enhance climate change mitigation in developing countries could be built around these factors to encourage private sector participation. The study is limited to the real estate sectors, and other sectors may have diverse degrees of sensitivity, so it may be necessary for policies makers to determine the factor-mix of suitable for other sectors and countries.

Keywords: Carbon Disclosure, Corporate Real Estate, Legitimacy theory, Agency theory, Stakeholder theory, Signaling Theory, Nigeria.