Insights on Climate Change and Sustainability Reporting: Turkey Case

Global greenhouse gas concentrations have significantly increased for the last two centuries. Burning fossil fuelsFossil fuel, deforestation, industry, agriculture, and population growth can be listed among the primary causes of greenhouse gases. Global greenhouse gas emissionsGreenhouse gas emissions reached 54.59 billion tons in 2021. The major concerns facing the planet are the climate changeClimate change and global warmingGlobal warming. Climate changeClimate change affects not only the environmentEnvironment but also the economy, taxation, finance world, and daily habits. Each individual has a different capacity to generate pollution. Numerous factors determine the contribution of CO2 emissionsCO2 emissions by each country. Within the framework of our study, we provide the statistics of the countries emitting the highest ratio of greenhouse gas emissionsGreenhouse gas emissions. A common opinion prevails on the conceptual framework based on the principle of “polluter paysPolluter pays”. In production and consumption processes, individuals or businesses emit greenhouse gases and other harmful gases into the environmentEnvironment. The “polluter paysPolluter pays” principle is explained by taxesTax incurred or additional costs due to said damage to the environmentEnvironment. We discuss this subject under the carbon pricingCarbon pricing chapter. In the second part of the study, we highlight corporate sustainabilitySustainability activities because sustainable developmentSustainable development and continuous adaptation to the changing environmentEnvironment have become very critical for companies. The issue of climate changeClimate change has become very crucial in terms of environmental, social, and governanceEnvironmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimensions, which are known to be the important dimensions of sustainability reportingSustainability reporting. In this study, it is taken as a goal to establish a link between sustainability reportingSustainability reporting and climate changeClimate change. We interpret the descriptive statistics of 373 observations operating in Turkey from 2015 to 2021. With the study it is observed that there has been an increase—at an insufficient rate—in the sustainability reportingSustainability reporting performance of companies in recent years.