Decomposing the Carbon Footprints of Multinational Enterprises Along Global Value Chains

In this paper, we trace MNEs’ carbon footprints (CFs) to the upstream along global value chains (GVCs) and analyze the driving factors that lead to changes in MNEs’ CFs through hierarchical structural decomposition analysis. Our findings show that MNEs’ CFs are mainly concentrated in advanced economies, and emerging markets and developing economies only account for a small but gradually increasing share. Further, MNEs’ CFs are mainly attributed to medium high/high-tech manufacturing, especially in emerging markets and developing economies. Finally, we analyze the different impacts of changes in the emissions of domestic-owned enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises in host countries and emissions generated abroad on MNEs’ CFs as well as the main driving factors leading to these changes in typical economies. Our findings provide support for MNEs’ whole global-value-chain emissions control and shed light on possible pathways for mitigating the domestic carbon emissions of economies that are deeply integrated into GVCs