Sustainability accounting and reporting: recent perspectives and an agenda for further research

Abstract

The viewpoint is based on the selection of papers presented at the 2017 Australasian Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research hosted by the University of the South Pacific and held from 7 to 9 December 2017 at Denarau, Nadi, Fiji. The annual Australasian Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research Conference provides an international forum and showcases research on the social and environmental aspects of accounting theory and practice. It also fosters and supports interdisciplinary research in accounting. Social and environmental accounting or sustainability accounting and reporting has become one of the major issues that organisations grapple with on a daily basis. Sustainability accounting is but one aspect of sustainability (

The digital transformation of corporate reporting – a systematic literature review and avenues for future research

“…On the other hand, the sustainability report is directed to highlighting environmental and social elements using stakeholders’ needs (Stubbs and Higgings, 2015) covering various fields including social and environmental accounting. Lodhia and Sharma (2019) argue that “sustainability accounting and reporting has become one of the major issues that organisations grapple with daily”. Many recent studies highlight the role of new and smart technologies [e.g.…”

Sustainability Accounting—Cognitive and Conceptual Approach

“…As Figure 2 shows, the first studies on sustainability reporting and accounting date back to the 1990s. The beginnings of sustainability accounting developed in a mesoeconomic and macroeconomic approach [20,21] and provided accounts to society of their resources use. By expanding the subject and object of corporate accounting, initially mainly concerning environmental aspects, the last two decades have brought a special development of sustainability accounting, and there has been a rapid increase in scientific interest in the analyzed areas in the last two decades.…”

“…However, "much work is required for sustainability accounting practice to achieve the rigor and integrity defined by the list of qualitative attributes" [7] (p. 24). The main accounting areas that still require in-depth normative research are as follows [21]: -sustainable development goals and their relationship with sustainability accounting and reporting; -the influence of the integrated reporting initiative on sustainability reporting and the role of accounting and accountants in this regard; -accounting for specific environmental issues such as Carbon, Water, Waste and Biodiversity and the implications for sustainability; -accounting for specific social issues such as health and safety, product responsibility, labor, gender, diversity, human rights, equity, modern slavery and the implications for sustainability sustainability accounting and reporting in developing countries.…”

“…The conceptual approach to sustainability accounting assumes accounting aims at implementing the principles of sustainable development in its system, and requires taking into account a number of factors of a global nature, both macroeconomic and microeconomic (based on the approach presented in [16,20,21,26]). This determines the principles of sustainable development adopted in the organization and the organization's sustainable development strategy.…”

“…Thus, sustainability accounting is expected to be a flexible system, reacting to changes in the internal and external environment. At the same time it must be a normative and reliable base, reflecting the company's achievements for sustainable development (due to the normatives of sustainability accounting presented by [9,10,12,21]). Moreover, the proposed approach to sustainability accounting requires a perception of itself as a new institutional space in a sustainable enterprise in which it is to be integrated into the economic, environmental and social dimensions of corporate performance (which is consistent with the position presented in [7,12,27,33]).…”