Innovating Corporate Accounting and Reporting for Sustainability – Attributes and Challenges

Abstract

The environmental and social impacts of companies and their processes, products and supply chains are a widespread concern. At the same time, such impacts provide opportunities for firms to engage in sustainability practices, to transform their businesses or to start new ventures contributing to sustainable development. In this context, innovation can be an important supportive vehicle for developing corporate sustainability management and accounting practices to effectively contribute to sustainable development. Based on the six attributes proposed by Baregheh et al. () to characterise innovations, this paper discusses what innovation in accounting for sustainability may encompass. Although significant efforts have been made, a reorientation and more research are needed to develop corporate accounting approaches to address environmental and social challenges more effectively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Developing a sustainability reporting assessment tool for higher education institutions: The University of California

“…The term sustainable development was initially introduced in the Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1972, which also led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in December of that year, and was mainstreamed by the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. Sustainable development is seen as means to transform one organization (Schaltegger, Etxeberria, & Ortas, ). Later, the Rio Earth Summit was a landmark event in establishing sustainable development at the highest decision‐making level in 1992 which also led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1993.…”

Assessing the impact of eco-innovations through sustainability indicators: the case of the commercial tea plantation industry in Sri Lanka

“…The social perspective of sustainability is intangible and qualitative in nature and lacks consensus on relevant criteria (Von Geibler et al 2006). This calls for innovation in accounting (Schaltegger et al 2017) to develop indicators and mechanisms to assess the various facets of sustainable development.…”

“…While posing many challenges, they also provide opportunities for businesses to engage in sustainability practices and transform their businesses so as to contribute to sustainable development (Schaltegger et al 2017). In this context, innovation is increasingly becoming an important supportive vehicle for developing corporate sustainability management as a means both of survival and growth (Han et al 1998;Schaltegger et al 2017). Hence, innovation processes aimed at sustainable development (eco-innovations) have received increasing attention in recent years (Bossle et al 2016;Marin and Lotti 2017;Provasnek et al 2017).…”

“…Further, the measure of sustainability depends to a great extent on the indicators used (Boggia and Cortina 2010). Similarly, information plays a key role in the process of creating and diffusing sustainability innovations (Schaltegger et al 2017). There should be mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of eco-innovations from economic, social and environmental perspectives.…”

Innovative Measurement for Corporate Sustainability

“…The first contribution, on ‘Innovating corporate accounting and reporting for sustainability. Attributes and challenges’ by Schaltegger et al (), employs the innovation attributes of Baregheh et al () to discuss how corporate accounting and reporting could be reoriented to address actual environmental and social challenges more effectively. The paper discusses what corporate sustainability might imply for accounting and reporting innovation.…”