Increasing environmental concerns and international requirements in the field of sustainability have made environmental management accounting (EMA) one of the key tools for improving sustainability performance in economic enterprises. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of the main components of environmental management accounting, including improving environmental efficiency, tracking environmental costs, and integrating life cycle assessment (LCA), on the sustainability performance of companies. Also, carbon emission management (CEM), as an important factor in companies' response to environmental pressures, was analyzed as both an independent and moderator variable to determine how this factor can increase or weaken the effectiveness of environmental measures in improving sustainability performance. To achieve the research objectives, data from 180 manufacturing companies listed on the Iranian Stock Exchange and OTC were collected and the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used to test the hypotheses. The results showed that improving environmental efficiency, tracking environmental costs and integrating life cycle assessment have a positive and significant impact on sustainability performance; that is, the systematic application of environmental management accounting tools leads to waste reduction, process improvement, increased energy efficiency and environmental transparency. The findings also indicate that carbon emissions management directly improves the sustainability performance of companies, but its moderating role in the relationship between environmental management accounting and sustainability performance appeared less strongly and was statistically weaker. This indicates that in many companies, carbon emissions management has not yet been fully integrated into environmental accounting systems and decision-making processes.
Overall, the present study, by providing new empirical evidence, highlights the importance of developing green accounting infrastructures, implementing environmental cost tracking systems, using life cycle assessment, and paying more attention to carbon emission management to improve sustainability performance in manufacturing companies. The research results can provide practical guidance for managers, policymakers, and regulators in designing sustainability reporting frameworks and developing environmental policies based on industrial realities.