Corporate Carbon Footprinting as Techno-political Practice

Attempting to tackle climate change with market solutions hinges on the existence of emissions. We know much about the politics of undoing emissionsvia offsets (e.g., Böhm and Dabhi 2009). But where do emissions come from? How are they done? Carbon footprinting seems to be the simple answer. Is this merely a technical matter? In this chapter I explore how emissions come into being; carbon accounting emerges as techno-political practice, fraught with non-transparency.