Accounting and sustainable development: An exploration

Bebbington, Jan; Larrínaga, Carlos

doi:10.1016/j.aos.2014.01.003

Cited by 409 publications

(418 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…Suggestions that we are now living in 'the Anthropocene' [1] lead to questions about how to develop within a safe and just space (Dearing et al, 2014;Waters et al, 2016) and the contribution social science, including accounting, can make to supporting ecological sustainability and social justice (Bebbington and Larrinaga, 2014;Bebbington and Thomson, 2013;Birkin et al, 2005;Brown et al, 2015;Dey and Russell, 2014;Fazey et al, 2017;Hackmann and St Clair, 2012;Hopwood, 2009;Milne and Gray, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts

Russell

Milne

Dey

2017

AAAJ

145

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Purpose: This paper reviews and synthesises academic research in environmental accounting and demonstrates its shortcomings. It provokes scholars to rethink their conceptions of 'accounts' and 'nature', and alongside others in this AAAJ special issue, provides the basis for an agenda for theoretical and empirical research that begins to 'ecologise' accounting.Design/methodology/approach: Utilising a wide range of thought from accounting, geography, sociology, political ecology, nature writing and social activism, the paper provides an analysis and critique of key themes associated with 40 years research in environmental accounting. It then considers how that broad base of work in social science, particularly pragmatic sociology (e.g. Latour, Boltanksi and Thévenot), could contribute to reimagining an ecologically informed accounting.Findings: Environmental accounting research overwhelmingly focuses on economic entities and their inputs and outputs. Conceptually, an 'information throughput' model dominates. There is little or no environment in environmental accounting, and certainly no ecology. The papers in this AAAJ special issue contribute to these themes, and alongside social science literature, indicate significant opportunities for research to begin to overcome them.Research Implications: This paper outlines and encourages the advancement of ecological accounts and accountabilities drawing on conceptual resources across social sciences, arts and humanities. It identifies areas for research to develop its interdisciplinary potential to contribute to ecological sustainability and social justice.Originality: How to 'ecologise' accounting and conceptualise human and non-human entities has received little attention in accounting research. This paper and AAAJ special issue provides empirical, practical and theoretical material to advance further work.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts

Russell

Milne

Dey

2017

AAAJ

145

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“… ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) (MacDonald, 2005;Rezaee & Elam, 2000).  Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) (Antheaume, 2007;Bebbington & Larrinaga, 2014;Birkin, 2000;Gray, 1992;Herbohn, 2005;Lamberton, 2000;Rikhardsson et al, 2005;Yang, 2007).…”

Section:  Socialmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, measuring of business sustainability is still laming toward the cost side of sustainability rather than balancing between cost and revenue sides (Antheaume, 2007;Bebbington & Larrinaga, 2014;Birkin, 2000;Gray, 1992;Herbohn, 2005;Lamberton, 2000;Yang, 2007). The majority of sustainability literature in accounting emphasis on measuring and reporting the cost side of sustainability either from environmental, social and/or financial perspectives in monetary and/or in non-monetary units (Abou Taleb et.al., 2015).…”

Section: International Journal Of Accounting and Financial Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, Letmathe and Doost (2000), Kumaran, et al (2001) and Yang (2007) were mainly focused on the cost side of environmental life cycle assessment, while, and Bebbington and Larrinaga (2014), who adopted full cost accounting (FCA) technique to consider all types of costs through business life cycle and as an approach that addresses the interlinkages between sustainable development problems and an entity. Further, Figge, et al (2002) and Scavone (2006) utilized the sustainability/ environmentally balanced scorecard methodology to provide the integrated performance information for decision-makers.…”

Section: International Journal Of Accounting and Financial Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Advancing Sustainable Income Accounting: An Australian Case Study

Taleb¹

2016

ijafr

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This paper is an exploration of the sustainability accounting literature to investigate the variety of accounting measurement instruments/tools/methodologies applied to achieve business sustainability and whether there is a real practical concern and application by companies toward the revenue side of sustainability, as well as, cost side. The research present a classification of different implemented sustainable accounting tools to measure corporate environmental and social costs due to the limitation of tools that implemented to measure corporate environmental and social revenues. Therefore, the paper adopts an Australian textile case study to investigate and analysis reality in practice. The outcome of the case study indicates that the companies may use the implemented sustainable accounting tools which are commonly applied to measure cost side of sustainability to measure, as well, revenue side, although the majority of the business sustainability literature focuses mainly on the cost side and how to measure it.

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“…More recently, Bebbington and Larrinaga [16] reinforced the role of accounting studies within sustainability science, stressing the importance of such disciplines in fully understand actions to prevent SEA's risks brought by corporations. In order to identify, predict and mitigate such risks, organisations should adopt different tools and derivate robust information related to the sustainability of the business itself and to the impacts of the business towards society and the environment.…”

Section: Sustainability Accounting and Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability & Risk Disclosure: An Exploratory Study on Sustainability Reports

Truant¹,

Corazza²,

Scagnelli³

2017

Preprint

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Recent policies' changes in sustainability reporting, such as the ones related to the new European Directive on non-financial disclosure (2014/95/EU), the standards issued by the American Sustainability Accounting Standard Board (SASB), the G4 guidelines issued by the Global Sustainability Standard Board (GSSB) and the framework of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) are stressing about the importance of extending the disclosure of ethical, social and environmental risks within financial and social-environmental reporting. Institutional pressure has notably increased among organizations, in setting-up risk management tools to understand sustainability risks within managerial and reporting practices. Given such institutional pressure, the corporate reaction in providing additional sustainability risk disclosure call for attention and scrutiny. Therefore, this study aims at addressing such issues from an exploratory perspective. We based our analysis on a sample of large Italian organizations that issued sustainability disclosure in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), G4 guidelines, and we tested the relationship between their level of risk disclosure and other relevant variables. Consistently with the literature, we found that "experienced" sustainable reporters provide a significant volume of disclosure, and that disclosure quality on risk is positively influenced by their international presence and reporting experience. However, when accounting for specific risk-related areas of disclosure, only few of them seems to adopt a managerial perspective linking strategy, risk metrics and disclosure.

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Accounting and sustainable development: An exploration

Cited by 409 publications

References 115 publications

Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts

Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts

Advancing Sustainable Income Accounting: An Australian Case Study

Sustainability & Risk Disclosure: An Exploratory Study on Sustainability Reports

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Accounting and sustainable development: An exploration

Cited by 409 publications

References 115 publications

Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts

Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts

Advancing Sustainable Income Accounting: An Australian Case Study

Sustainability &amp; Risk Disclosure: An Exploratory Study on Sustainability Reports

Contact Info

Product

Resources

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Sustainability & Risk Disclosure: An Exploratory Study on Sustainability Reports