Perhaps the most critical challenge facing business and society generally is to tackle climate change and live within our ecological limits, while continuing to enjoy economic prosperity. Key to addressing this challenge is the need for all organisations, public and private, to embed sustainability into their “DNA”. Although sustainability accounting has developed in recent years, relatively few organisations have comprehensive systems and procedures to ensure that sustainability considerations are taken into account fully and consistently in decision-making and reporting.
This book presents examples of how organisations have used these accounting for sustainability tools and principles to embed sustainability into their DNA. Key features include:
- practitioner-oriented illustrations of ‘connected thinking’ between the organisation’s sustainability agenda, overall strategy and core business activities;
- examples of processes that have been followed to enable sustainability issues to be taken into account clearly and consistently in strategic and day-to-day decision-making;
- examination of how the embedding of sustainability extends beyond an organisation’s own boundaries to take into account suppliers and customers;
- examples of how to measure sustainability performance and financial impacts and the systems and processes necessary to support the collection of relevant data; and
- identification of barriers to embedding sustainability and ways in which organizations have sought to address and overcome these.
In-depth cases studies from Aviva, BT, the Environment Agency, EDF Energy, HSBC, Novo Nordisk, Sainsbury’s and West Sussex County Council paint a rich picture of accounting for sustainability in practice and a wealth of lessons and examples of both common pitfalls and good practice.
This book is indispensible for all business leaders, accountancy professionals and others seeking to embed sustainability into the DNA of their organisations in the pursuit of both better business and better sustainability performance.
The book was published in June 2010 and can be ordered at the Earthscan website. Get a 20% discount when ordering any book at www.earthscan.co.uk using the voucher code A4S.
Research into “connected reporting” and decision-making
The Accounting for Sustainability Project worked with a team of leading business and management academics to analyse the impact of methodologies and tools for “connected reporting” and decision-making on organisations’ sustainability performance.
The aim was to produce a series of case studies that document the ways in which connecting financial and sustainability information can improve organisational processes and actions, and also to stimulate further research into ways of encouraging organisational decisions and actions that are more compatible with a sustainability agenda.
A summary of key insights from this research can be found be clicking here. The full versions of the case studies were published in June 2010. For more information on our new book “Accounting for Sustainability: Practical Insights” please click here.
Participating organisations
Six leading companies (Aviva, BT, EDF Energy, HSBC, Novo Nordisk and Sainsbury’s) and two UK public sector bodies (Environment Agency and West Sussex County Council) have agreed to take part in the work which began in March 2009.
While there is a growing body of research into sustainability reporting, the ways in which such reporting practices interact with other organisational processes is an area that is relatively unexplored, and this will be one of the focuses of the current project.
Researchers
The researchers, led by Professor Anthony Hopwood (Oxford University) and Professor Jeffrey Unerman (Royal Holloway, University of London) have analysed the extent to which sustainability information has been embedded into the regular operations of the organisations, thus supporting the work of the Project to move sustainable decision-making into the mainstream. The cases include how some of the organisations have applied the Connected Reporting Framework (developed by the project in December 2007) and how this application links to internal decision-making.
The academics participating in the study are:
- Professor David Otley, Dr Martin Brigham and Vicky Kiosse (Lancaster University Management School);
- Professor Al Bhimani and Dr Kazbi Soonawalla (London School of Economics);
- Professor Dave Owen and Dr Suzana Grubnic (Nottingham University Business School);
- Dr Laura Spence and Dr Leonardo Rinaldi (Royal Holloway, University of London);
- Dr Geogios Georgakopolous (University of Amsterdam Business School);
- Professor John Burns and Dr Colin Dey (University of Dundee);
- Linda Lewis (University of Sheffield);
- Ian Thomson (University of Strathclyde); and,
- Professor Jeffrey Unerman (Manchester Business School) and Professor Brendan O’Dwyer (University of Amsterdam Business School)
