Sustainability accounting and reporting

This chapter provides readers with an understanding of the role that accounting systems can play in helping management determine an organization’s impact on the natural environment. Accounting involves the definition, recognition, classification, measurement and disclosure of financial information for the benefit of stakeholders. Whilst accountants have specific processes for dealing with how business transactions flow through to the financial statements, environmental information poses unique challenges to the firm due mainly to the holistic nature of the environment, and the difficulty in attributing value to it. Much of what it represents is subjective and its consequences have broader social impacts beyond the firm.