Download This PaperAC-Counting for Carbon Emissions: Simulating Absence Through Experimental Sites of Material Politics
Forthcoming in Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 2020
34 Pages Posted: 19 May 2020
There are 2 versions of this paper
AC-Counting for Carbon Emissions: Simulating Absence Through Experimental Sites of Material Politics
AC-Counting for Carbon Emissions: Simulating Absence through Experimental Sites of Material Politics
Date Written: April 13, 2020
Abstract
Purpose – Most carbon accounting consists of valuing what has not happened; such absent entities and their materialization through simulated calculations can enact political participation, however. By using Marres’s (2012) notion of an “experimental site of material politics”, this paper aims to investigate the mediating role of simulated calculations of prevented carbon emissions in deploying environmental politics’ discourses. Here, such calculations become seductive forces for public engagement and help performing engaging spaces for supporting the diffusion of innovation technologies.
Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis concerns a simulated calculative device
developed by Autos-trade, a motorway management firm, in its work to translate questions about capacity utilization, through the fluidity of traffic, into reductions in CO2 emissions. These reductions took the form of a simulation that required an apparatus to be performed and involved alternative scenarios focusing on hypothetical rather than absolute CO2 reductions.
Findings – The Autos-trade case highlights how simulated calculations of absent CO2 emissions participate in the construction of a collective experience by interfacing concerns that encompass the rationalities of the domestication of technological innovation and make motorway mobility a responsible and ac-countable action.
Practical implications – The paper shows how simulated and experimental calculations on absent
carbon emissions act as mediators between public engagement and the deployment of environmental politics discourses. They both extend political participation and propagate and reproduce the trials, which, from time to time, challenge the enticement and forcefulness of a technological innovation.
Social implications – The paper suggests a different dimension of politics that relies on material politics. Rather than considering human centric discursive acts, it looks at the power of technical objects and their augmented calculative devices in engaging the public in environmental politics. This is where absence, which is made visible and materialized through simulations, deploys affordances that re-frame power relationships.
Originality/value – This is the first case study that addresses the issue of the role of accounting calculation on absent carbon emissions in enabling innovation and engaging publics in environmental politics.
Keywords: Absence, Calculative Device, Carbon Accounting, Experimental Site, Innovation, Material Politics, Simulation
JEL Classification: M4
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation