Environmental accounting and change in UK local government

Purpose - This paper aims to explore environmental accounting in terms of long‐term societal transition towards “sustainable development”. Design/methodology/approach - Accordingly, the paper uses an abstracted and generic framework of antecedents to “deinstitutionalisation” (the erosion or discontinuity of institutionalized organisational activities or practices) to analyse a case study of how a UK local government council is responding to an environmental agenda in the context of an array of gradual political, functional and social pressures to change its activities. Findings - The findings of the study indicate how, in different ways, environmental accounting is pressed into use to promote such change. Originality/value - Contrary to other frameworks which emphasise how environmental accounting is potentially constructive/empowering or captured/colonized, drawing on this case study the paper argues that environmental accounting may in contrast be mobilised to contribute to a process of deinstitutionalisation, even when attempts to develop such accounting are not entirely successful.