IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envval/v3y1994i1p17-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate Reporting for Sustainable Development: Accounting for Sustainability in 2000AD1

Author

Listed:
  • R.H. Gray

Abstract

The paper is principally concerned with (a) outlining the range of possibilities that exist for organisations which wish to undertake environmental and sustainability reporting and (b) suggesting particular approaches as the more desirable. But the paper also attempts to show that there is an important difference between environmental reporting and reporting for sustainability, and that, so far, efforts to encourage organisations to voluntarily undertake either have not been successful. Environmental reporting is business-centred and there are a number of practicable ways in which it can be undertaken. The most notable of these are the UN CTC approach to financial environmental reporting plus the Compliance-with-Standard Report. Reporting for sustainability is life-centred and, whatever method we adopt it is likely to show that western organisations are not currently sustainable. The concept of sustainability is widely underestimated and misused in business and political circles. This is explored and the real meaning of sustainability operationalised. Environmental reporting and sustainability reporting are shown to be essential and practicable. It is argued, however, that there is little or no prospect of widespread, systematic reporting by corporations without a major regulatory initiative.

Suggested Citation

  • R.H. Gray, 1994. "Corporate Reporting for Sustainable Development: Accounting for Sustainability in 2000AD1," Environmental Values, , vol. 3(1), pages 17-45, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:3:y:1994:i:1:p:17-45
    DOI: 10.1177/096327199400300106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/096327199400300106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/096327199400300106?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rob Gray & Dave Owen & Keith Maunders, 1988. "Corporate Social Reporting: Emerging Trends in Accountability and the Social Contract," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 1(1), pages 6-20, June.
    2. Gray, Rob, 1992. "Accounting and environmentalism: An exploration of the challenge of gently accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 399-425, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ball, Amanda & Craig, Russell, 2010. "Using neo-institutionalism to advance social and environmental accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 283-293.
    2. Rambaud, Alexandre & Richard, Jacques, 2015. "The “Triple Depreciation Line” instead of the “Triple Bottom Line”: Towards a genuine integrated reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 92-116.
    3. Marc Bollecker & Pierre Mathieu & Claude Clementz, 2006. "Le Comportement Socialement Responsable Des Entreprises : Une Lecture Des Travaux En Comptabilite Et Contrôle De Gestion Dans Une Perspective Neo-Institutionnaliste," Post-Print halshs-00769052, HAL.
    4. Robbins, Geraldine & Lapsley, Irvine, 2015. "From secrecy to transparency: Accounting and the transition from religious charity to publicly-owned hospital," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 19-32.
    5. Carlos Larrinaga & Francisco Carrasco & Carmen Correa & Fernando Llena & Jose Moneva, 2002. "Accountability and accounting regulation: the case of the Spanish environmental disclosure standard," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4), pages 723-740.
    6. Olivier Boiral, 2016. "Accounting for the Unaccountable: Biodiversity Reporting and Impression Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(4), pages 751-768, June.
    7. Dimes, Ruth & de Villiers, Charl, 2024. "Hallmarks of Integrated Thinking," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1).
    8. Neu, D. & Warsame, H. & Pedwell, K., 1998. "Managing public impressions: environmental disclosures in annual reports," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 265-282, April.
    9. Tregidga, Helen & Laine, Matias, 2022. "On crisis and emergency: Is it time to rethink long-term environmental accounting?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Hoinaru Razvan, 2018. "What are the objectives of corporate reporting? Sustainable value for who?," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 436-445, May.
    11. Tobias Hahn & Mandy Scheermesser, 2006. "Approaches to corporate sustainability among German companies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(3), pages 150-165, July.
    12. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    13. Tobias Hahn & Frank Figge & Jonatan Pinkse & Lutz Preuss, 2010. "Trade‐offs in corporate sustainability: you can't have your cake and eat it," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 217-229, May.
    14. Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias, 2004. "Sustainable Value Added--measuring corporate contributions to sustainability beyond eco-efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 173-187, February.
    15. Božić, Barbara & Kolić Stanić, Matilda & Jurišić, Jelena, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility in the Practice of Public Relations Professionals," Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference (2020), Virtual Conference, in: Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference, Virtual Conference, 10-12 September 2020, pages 388-397, IRENET - Society for Advancing Innovation and Research in Economy, Zagreb.
    16. Urquía-Grande, Elena & Lorain, Marie-Anne & Rautiainen, Antti Ilmari & Cano-Montero, Elisa Isabel, 2021. "Balance with logic-measuring the performance and sustainable development efforts of an NPO in rural Ethiopia," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Cuckston, Thomas, 2022. "Accounts of NGO performance as calculative spaces: Wild Animals, wildlife restoration and strategic agency," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Gray, Rob, 2010. "Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability...and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 47-62, January.
    19. Rob Gray & Jan Bebbington & David Collison, 2006. "NGOs, civil society and accountability: making the people accountable to capital," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 19(3), pages 319-348, April.
    20. Burnett, Royce D. & Hansen, Don R., 2008. "Ecoefficiency: Defining a role for environmental cost management," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 551-581, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envval:v:3:y:1994:i:1:p:17-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.