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Sustainability + Accounting Education: The Elephant in the Classroom

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  • Rob Gray

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of sustainability and the sustainable development agenda, and despite the growing presence of papers recognising the critical interaction between sustainability and accounting and finance (and, indeed, with all social science), there has been a relatively muted response apparent within the accounting education literature itself. This relative lack of literature may well be unexpected but what is not unexpected is the difficulty that accounting and finance teachers have in developing such demanding new ideas with accounting and finance students in the classroom. Without in any sense gainsaying the considerable impediments to innovation, this explicitly polemical essay seeks to address a more fundamental difficulty: that of the way in which sustainability is approached and represented in both the literature and the classroom itself. The contention is that, unless sustainability is 'keeping you awake at night', you do not understand it. The paper seeks to support this contention and then offers an example of one undergraduate course that is explicitly designed to stop students sleeping peacefully.

Suggested Citation

  • Rob Gray, 2013. "Sustainability + Accounting Education: The Elephant in the Classroom," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 308-332, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:accted:v:22:y:2013:i:4:p:308-332
    DOI: 10.1080/09639284.2013.817795
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    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808, Decembrie.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lee, W. Eric & Perdana, Arif, 2023. "Effects of experiential service learning in improving community engagement perception, sustainability awareness, and data analytics competency," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Contrafatto, M. & Thomson, I. & Monk, E.A., 2015. "Peru, mountains and los niños: Dialogic action, accounting and sustainable transformation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 117-136.
    3. Laura Mazzola & Massimo Contrafatto, 2019. "Book Review," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(1), pages 155-162.
    4. Wyness, Lynne & Dalton, Fiona, 2018. "The value of problem-based learning in learning for sustainability: Undergraduate accounting student perspectives," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-19.
    5. Atanasov, Atanas, 2023. "Отчитането На Устойчивостта - Липсващата Част От Пъзела На Счетоводното Образование [Sustainability Reporting - The Missing Piece of the Accounting Education Puzzle]," MPRA Paper 117538, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Massimo Contrafatto, 2013. "Utopia' and 'Passion': A Commentary on 'Sustainability and Accounting Education: The Elephant in the Classroom," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 336-339, August.
    7. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2015. "Accounting education literature review (2013–2014)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 69-127.
    8. Vanini, Ute & Bochert, Saskia, 2024. "Integration of sustainability issues into management accounting textbooks," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    9. Joanna Gusc & Coen Heijes, 2018. "“Oh This Learning, What a Thing It Is!”—Putting Sustainability First in Teaching Techniques and in Content," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-23, August.

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