Sustainable development,

corporate social responsibility &

accounting
Prof. Jan Bebbington
Centre for Social & Environmental Accounting Research
St Andrews Sustainability Institute
Vice-Chair (Scotland), Sustainable Development Commission

Where I am going
Mixture of:
Ideas from academia
Application of these in applied research settings
With awareness of policy context

Key concepts
Accounting & accountability
Sustainable development
Governance/governmentality

Played out via accounting for sustainable

development example

We all think we know about

accountability

but do we?
and if it were easy why does it
seem so hard?

A possible definition
The duty to provide an account (by no
means necessarily a financial account) or
reckoning of those actions for which one is
responsible
Gray, Owen & Adams (1996)

Principal
Instructions

Contract

All this takes

place within a
social &
regulatory
context

Accounts

Agent
Sanctions
Actions or forebear from action

Observations & nuance

Context matters (SD is a
context conditioner)
Nature of contract
between parties is key (&
dictates account)
Ability to impose
sanctions should contract
be breached is essential
Relative power between
parties is of fundamental
importance
Notions of closeness &
absence of accounts

Multiple & nested

accountability
complicates things
Accountability is not easy
& comfortable
Accounts are not only
financial
ACCOUNTS imply
accountability and vice
versa

Sustainable development as the

context

SD & organisations
Is this connection
possible? Useful?
Integration of the scale of
issues
What would we need to
know if an organisation
were sustainable?
Environmentally
Socially
Economically

CSR vs SD
If SD is not a sensible
notion for an organisation
... then you end up talking
about CSR
Responsibility has to be
defined (could be linked to
SD) that is appropriate
at a corporate level and
know what is not
appropriate at that level

Governing is
any more or less calculated and rational activity,
undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities and
agencies, employing a variety of techniques and
forms of knowledge, that seeks to shape our
conduct by working through our desires,
aspirations, interests and beliefs, for definite but
shifting ends and with a diverse set of relatively
unpredictable consequences, effects and
outcomes (Dean, 1999, p 209).

Governmentality (Dean 1999)

Problematization Identification of an issue to be
governed
Regimes of
Visibilities
governing or
Knowledge
analytics of
Techniques & practices
government
Identities
Utopian ideal

Aim for governance and belief

that governing is possible by
regime of governing

Accounting as a technique &

practice
Full cost accounting
Aims to quantify a fuller picture of
organisational impacts
Environmentally and/or socially focused

Externalities
when the social or economic activities of one
group of persons have an impact on another
group and when that impact is not fully
accounted for by the first group

A monetized model
All figures are in
monetary units
+ve

-ve

capitals
SOCIAL

ENVIRONMENTAL

RESOURCE

ECONOMIC

The Elements of the SAM

Total turnover or total cost

Social benefit of product/service

Benefits via taxation

Social benefit of jobs

Resources consumed
Pollution impacts
SOCIAL

ENVIRONMENTAL

RESOURCE

ECONOMIC

An Overall Measure the SAMi

SOCIAL

ENVIRONMENTAL

RESOURCE

SAMi = 25%

ECONOMIC

Summary
Accounting
Discharging accountability
Negotiation about responsibility

Sustainable development as a set of

aspirations
Governance
Full cost accounting is one technique
Implies a great deal