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Capital budgeting is crucial in the maximisation of shareholder value as it depends on the capital budgeting decisions made by the managers. The capital budgeting techniques used by South African mines listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) and the reasons behind their use were investigated. Questionnaires were conducted during the period of March to May 2011 to gather data. The results also indicated that the net present value (NPV) (69%), the internal rate of return (IRR) (46%) and the payback period (PB) (23%) are the most common techniques used to evaluate major projects. The main reason for the use of the NPV was its superiority as it accurately takes into account the time value of money. The IRR method is used owing to its ability to rank projects and to indicate the actual return of each project, thereby informing managers whether an investment will increase the company's value. The results indicated that the continual use of PB was based on the simplicity of the technique. Financial officers (FOs) should also make use of other techniques for example, discounted payback period (DPB), profitability index (PI) and the real options which are of valuable in determining the feasibility of projects.

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Good sustainability decisions depend on how companies respond to wide-ranging exposure to exogenous and endogenous pressures. The purpose of the article was to determine whether companies in different industries respond differently to stakeholders’ pressures when prioritising Environmental, Social and Governance sustainability performance (ESG-SP) activities. Data of six sectors, with a total of 75 companies was extracted from the CSRHub database, which is a rating agency that focuses on assessing ESG performance of companies. The ANOVA, pairwise comparative and multiple comparison Tukey HSD tests were applied to compare mean scores across the sectors. Overall industry scores show no evidence of ESG-SP differences across industries in the sectors examined. It was however revealed that three (3) out of twelve ESG ratings have significant differences namely: Community Development and Philanthropy; Human Rights and Supply Chain; as well as Compensation and Benefits. The study found that the type of industry does not have a significant role in determining the ESG rating of a company. Future studies can look at a longitudinal analysis to shed light on the pattern of sustainability practices across companies that are listed on the JSE.

Barriers and drivers of environmental management accounting practices' (EMAPs) adoption were compared between developed and developing countries. This may assist to promote adoption of EMAPs by targeting and overcoming applicable barriers while promoting drivers that are specific to their circumstances, leading to sustainable development ultimately. Methodology: A qualitative, six-step systematic literature review (SLR) using ATLAS.ti 8 were employed. Four interdependent theories (institutional, contingency, legitimacy, and stakeholder) framed the SLR. Findings: developed countries have strong institutions that exert institutional isomorphic pressure on organisations to adopt EMAPs while developing countries with weaker institutions are hindered by low isomorphic pressure. Moreover, mimetic, and normative forces and contingent factors played a greater role in the adoption of EMAPs in developed countries, less important for developing countries. The findings may inform management who would want to enhance the environmental performance and sustainable development of their organisations and furthermore assist policymakers in developed and developing countries as they pursue environmental sustainability which is key to attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and Africa's Agenda 2063. Past studies investigated drivers and barriers in different countries however they did not distinguish between developed and developing countries. Since developed and developing countries have unique circumstances, this distinction exposes the different barriers and drivers.