I think one of the ways to look at your question is to analyze the company’s sustainable development (or CSR) strategy (and CO emission within it) and then connect it with the company’s performance.
There are a lot of literature regarding the subject, I strongly recommend you also to add ISO 14000 and 26000 to your research
It has to be sufficient state taxation on the firms producing carbon emissions by following the "green direction". This workforce, which will suffer because of that in the labour market, has to be subsidized by the states worldwide.