Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Organising Uncertainty: Carbon Metrics, Auditability, and Municipal Sustainability Governance

Bicker Caarten, Liselot Maxime LU and Andreasson, Emmy LU (2026) SMMP40 20261
Department of Service Studies
Abstract (Swedish)
Carbon accounting has become an important part of sustainability governance, as organisations are increasingly expected to report and justify their climate impacts. However, emissions figures are not neutral technical outputs. They are shaped by methodological choices, boundaries, assumptions, data infrastructures, and professional judgement. This is especially relevant for municipalities, where carbon metrics are used for internal follow-up, political decision-making, public reporting, and democratic accountability.
This thesis examines how Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg make carbon metrics governable, auditable, and legitimate within municipal sustainability governance. The study is based on document analysis and semi-structured... (More)
Carbon accounting has become an important part of sustainability governance, as organisations are increasingly expected to report and justify their climate impacts. However, emissions figures are not neutral technical outputs. They are shaped by methodological choices, boundaries, assumptions, data infrastructures, and professional judgement. This is especially relevant for municipalities, where carbon metrics are used for internal follow-up, political decision-making, public reporting, and democratic accountability.
This thesis examines how Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg make carbon metrics governable, auditable, and legitimate within municipal sustainability governance. The study is based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews, analysed through the lenses of auditability, Management Control Systems, and institutional legitimacy.
The findings show that municipalities make carbon metrics usable by embedding them in responsibilities, reporting routines, standards, review practices, and professional judgement. However, carbon metrics can become credible and defensible without automatically leading to climate action, since municipalities often account for emissions they can only partly influence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) was not found to be institutionalised in the municipalities studied, but it appears to be an emerging issue that may intensify existing challenges around traceability, responsibility, and actionability. Overall, the thesis shows that municipal carbon accounting is less about producing perfect numbers and more about organising uncertainty so emissions data can be trusted, used, and publicly justified. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Bicker Caarten, Liselot Maxime LU and Andreasson, Emmy LU
supervisor
organization
course
SMMP40 20261
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Carbon accounting, municipal climate governance, auditability, carbon metrics, sustainability reporting, institutional legitimacy, Artificial Intelligence.
language
English
id
9233938
date added to LUP
2026-06-10 09:03:02
date last changed
2026-06-10 09:03:02
@misc{9233938,
  abstract     = {{Carbon accounting has become an important part of sustainability governance, as organisations are increasingly expected to report and justify their climate impacts. However, emissions figures are not neutral technical outputs. They are shaped by methodological choices, boundaries, assumptions, data infrastructures, and professional judgement. This is especially relevant for municipalities, where carbon metrics are used for internal follow-up, political decision-making, public reporting, and democratic accountability.
This thesis examines how Malmö, Lund and Helsingborg make carbon metrics governable, auditable, and legitimate within municipal sustainability governance. The study is based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews, analysed through the lenses of auditability, Management Control Systems, and institutional legitimacy.
The findings show that municipalities make carbon metrics usable by embedding them in responsibilities, reporting routines, standards, review practices, and professional judgement. However, carbon metrics can become credible and defensible without automatically leading to climate action, since municipalities often account for emissions they can only partly influence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) was not found to be institutionalised in the municipalities studied, but it appears to be an emerging issue that may intensify existing challenges around traceability, responsibility, and actionability. Overall, the thesis shows that municipal carbon accounting is less about producing perfect numbers and more about organising uncertainty so emissions data can be trusted, used, and publicly justified.}},
  author       = {{Bicker Caarten, Liselot Maxime and Andreasson, Emmy}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Organising Uncertainty: Carbon Metrics, Auditability, and Municipal Sustainability Governance}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}