Carbon Crime in the Voluntary Market: An Exploration of Modernization Themes among a Sample of Criminal and Non-Criminal Organizations

Date

2015-08-28

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Publisher

Springer

Type

Article

Peer reviewed

Yes

Abstract

The international voluntary carbon market allows economic actors to profit financially by selling carbon reduction projects (as carbon credits) in the marketplace. The objective of this work is to examine the ideology of that market and its implications for crime and climate change. More specifically, we compare advertising messages for two sets of actors in the voluntary carbon market: criminal and non-criminal organizations. To carry out this analysis we draw upon a grounded theory approach to analyze marketing websites for a sample of organizations that sell credits. We discover that overall, organizations draw upon ecological modernization ideology to provide opportunities to gain access to investors and victims by emphasizing (1) sustainability; (2) ethical behaviour; (3) economic development; and, (4) technological innovation. Importantly, statistical analyses failed to differentiate between the forms of modernization ideology employed by legal and illegal actors.

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Citation

McKie, R. E., Stretesky, P.B. and Long, M.A. (2015) Carbon Crime in the Voluntary Market: An Exploration of Modernisation Themes among a Sample of Criminal and Non-Criminal Organisations. Critical Criminology 23 (4) pp. 473–486

Rights

Research Institute