In the last decade, companies have started to disclose information on carbon emissions. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to look into this phenomenon in South America, which is a very important geographical area regarding climate change because of the local nature and developing economies. This paper explores the relationships between some corporate variables and two important decisions: (i) whether to report carbon emissions, and (ii) the impact on the evolution of carbon emissions. Logit and linear panel data models are used to determine the driving factors for decisions (i) and (ii). Our results show that regarding the carbon reporting decision, a company’s size, sustainability reporting, existence of a sustainability committee, and whether it belongs to a certain sector (telecom, utilities, and consumer discretionary) are significant positive factors, whereas the country is a negatively significant factor if the company is based in either Chile or Peru. Regarding the factors that lead to more sustainable behavior, our results reveal that a company’s size, the existence of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee, and the disclosure of a sustainability report lead to a decrease in emissions levels.

RESUMEN A raíz del Protocolo de Kioto, España crea el Registro Nacional de Huella de Carbono, Compensación y Proyectos de Absorción de Dióxido de Carbono mediante el Real Decreto 163/2014. Ello se constituye en una iniciativa pionera para potenciar que las empresas españolas den visibilidad a su compromiso en la reducción de sus emisiones de Gases de Efecto Invernadero (GEI). Bajo este contexto, la presente investigación explora los determinantes de la adhesión al Registro Nacional de Huella de Carbono español. Se realiza un estudio exploratorio de las características de las primeras empresas españolas que decidieron inscribir su huella de carbono, a través de un modelo de regresión logística (logit). El estudio concluye que las organizaciones que tienen mayor probabilidad de registrar un mayor alcance de su huella de carbono se caracterizan por pertenecer a un sector no manufacturero, ser de reciente creación y poseer una cultura ambiental transparente.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), have been adopted by a large number of countries, since they are considered an international benchmark for obtaining comparable quality financial information. The adoption by Ecuador and Colombia of IFRS as a transition from their previous local regulations based on provisions and decrees, justifies the present research work to provide knowledge of the regulatory reality of both countries. Behind this ambitious adoption of accounting standards, since they are costly processes both financially and in terms of training, there is a need to obtain consistent financial information that should attract investments and facilitate access to other less harmful financial markets. The purpose of this research is to perform an analysis of the effect on the accounting variables of the balance sheet and financial ratios, before and after the application of IFRS on large Ecuadorian and Colombian companies. To do this, Wilcoxon’s nonparametric test of related samples is used, on a total of 204 Ecuadorian companies and 60 Colombian companies. To compare the results of both countries, a non-parametric U Mann-Whitney test is carried out. The results show an impact in both countries on the variables studied after the mandatory adoption of IFRS, although the relative impact is greater in the Colombian case.