Sustainability Accounting And Reporting Process – Summary And Analysis

Reporting and Management of Sustainability Performance

Discuss about the Sustainability Accounting and Reporting Process.

The key objective of this particular assignment is to summarize and analyze the important insight from the source article. It encompasses the fundamental arguments in the article and to utilize the understanding as a base for designing a study project on sustainability reporting and accounting (Adams, 2013). The article articulates on the present aspects of ethics, sustainability reporting and accounting which primarily engrosses with those entities appealing to report and manage their sustainability performance. In this aspect, the journal attempts to address the importance of engaging with entities in pursuit of enhanced sustainability performance and accounting. Engagement study in sustainability reporting and accounting has the prospective to enhance practice, theorizing, and the sustainability performance of companies since it refers to all concerns that may be encompassed in an organization’s sustainability report.

The article discusses that environmental and social reporting hypothesis have been established without engaging companies that do sustainability recording regardless of finding out that the practice of reporting, participants attitudes and business philosophy play a significant part in defining the magnitude of accountability discharge through business disclosures (Ball, Grubnic, and Birchall, 2014). Companies are required to ensure that they maintain proper sustainability in their financial statements and recording that demonstrates how they report and manage their sustainability performance. Most of the organizations have shifted from the distinct terms of environmental and social reporting and accounting in favor of embracing unclear terms of sustainability reporting and accounting.

This journal also presents a special concern which basically engages with organizations that practice the aspect of sustainability accounting and accountability. Companies all over the world use sustainability reporting and accounting so as to uphold the status of the company or even follow their general objectives. Management capture can be apprehended as the ultimate elucidation of corporate social responsibility by executives and the consequent resolution making in a restrained fashion that is steady with company goals of maximizing the wealth of the shareholders (Bebbington, Unerman, and Dwyer, 2014). The presence of management capture of corporate business responsibility suggests that deliberately efforts to widen corporate responsibility of companies are not likely to be successful.

The challenges of engaging with organizations in pursuit of improved sustainability accounting and performance have prompted the difficulty of management reality, launching opportunities and risks for entities. In the past two decades of sustainability accounting and performance in management practices have basically refined the basic apprehension of the relationships between business success and sustainability aspect of firm because management accounting is considered to be an essential system utilized for preparing, generating and offering information for recognizing decision circumstances and enlightening decisions (Fonseca, Macdonald, Dandy, and Valenti, 2014). Building on the significance of this data, sustainability reporting and accounting have received significant consideration in the last ten years.

Environmental and Social Reporting Hypothesis

Academics must engage with companies in pursuit of enhanced sustainability performance and accounting. Building on the relevance of this information, such engagements is viewed as having a significant effect not only on teaching students but also in applying for knowledge scholarship from research activities to forms of professional or management practice. It increases the effectiveness of public policy and services thus assist firm in enhancing the quality of life, health, and creative output (Gray, Adams, and Owen, 2014). In the light of the global financial crisis, the economic recession of most recent years and global environment, political and social challenges, diverse researchers in management and business schools have basically come under intensifying pressure to engage with the problems and dilemmas of the globe in which they operate.

Academics that engages with businesses in pursuit of enhanced sustainability performance and accounting is important because it fosters global economic performance of companies. The role of accounting academics is often to assists diverse firms to initiate and maintain the aspect of corporate social responsibility (Joseph, 2012). Engaging with academics may involve mutual learning between companies and practitioners that allow businesses to inform new theories and academic theory to inform managers. Most of the companies globally will be able to utilize the knowledge instigated by the researchers to expand their respective business thus increasing their optimal revenues.

Academics should be encouraged to engage in the pursuit of enhanced sustainability performance and accounting in businesses because it assists secure accessibility and increasing responsiveness of sustainability data. The benefits of the use and availability of sustainability data for business success is largely undoubted both for internal use and external communication because it enables firms to meet their set objectives (Ioannou, and Serafeim, 2016). Due to the information volume, makers of the decision of numerous levels tend to emphasis on the form of information that plainly adds to their major work, thus leaving a predominant perspective to the sustainability controlling unit.

The number of big firms that on a regular basis report on their overall impact on improved sustainability accounting and reporting has drastically increased both in extent and in the complex. Diverse accounting community has historically viewed sustainability accounting and reporting as falling outside the traditional accounting study realm. Conversely, it is increasingly recognized that sustainability accounting and reporting is being adopted and used broadly that those individuals working in finance or accounting areas will remain ignoring the aspect at their own risk. This research study is basically to examine and explore whether the distinctive and more progressive process of improved sustainability accounting and reporting are possible in public sector industries (Lodhia, and Hess, 2014). The findings suggest that the existence of an intense communication activity through reporting media that are considered to be different from the traditionally improved sustainability accounting and reporting reports. In addition, these particular reports seem to be coupled with real organizational strategies and operational activities within Newcastle Port Company, Australia.

Management Capture of Corporate Business Responsibility

The purpose of this particular research is to present a case for study in sustainability reporting and accounting in Newcastle Port Company claiming to report and manage their sustainability performance. Moreover, the study reviews the contribution on this particular issue. This perspective is necessary because it also provides an analysis and critique of the engagement study extent in the basis of sustainability reporting and accounting (Milne, and Gray, 2013). It basically draws in the administration field, critical accounting and management accounting so as to present an instance for advanced study engagement with sustainability reporting and accounting practice.

The exploration of improving sustainability reporting and accounting will be accomplished by carrying out an intra-industry field study of Newcastle Port Company situated in Australia responsible for the distribution of water and the collection and water treatment. This particular research will apply descriptive study design which describes data and characteristics about the phenomenon being studied. According to Lodhia, and Hess (2014), descriptive research is the process of collecting data with the main objectives of describing an activity. The study will adopt this research design in order to enable the researcher to investigate the influences on improved sustainability accounting and reporting within Newcastle Port Company. The data used will be collected from diverse sources like Newcastle Port Company financial statements and Australian Stock Exchange website. Documents analyzed included company annual reports and accounts from 2011 to 2016, sustainability accounting reports when accessible as well as different disclosed documents that describe environmental management in the enterprise (Rinaldi, Unerman, and Tilt, 2014).  Conducting the research on this particular phenomenon is vital because it will contribute to the effectiveness of business transactions by companies and ensure that the aspect of corporate social responsibility is upheld. This is essential for both academic and practices because it will instigate proper understanding of the influences and importance of sustainability reporting and accounting in practice.

Building on the relevance of this research project, it attempts to address the significant impact of the company utilizing the aspect of sustainability reporting and accounting in their operations because a lack of sustainability reporting could result to think that these firms are not responsive to external demands (O’Dwyer, Owen, and Unerman, 2011). Illustrating on the approaches and hypotheses of other discipline and the study in the exceptional issue, the degree to which the study project addresses the concerns raised in the source article is that the research attempts to present a way forward for academics engaging with companies that practice sustainability reporting and accounting. Engaging study in sustainability reporting and accounting has a prospective to enhance practice, theorizing and the sustainability accounting and reporting thus addressing the concerns raised in the source article. Engaging with organizations is often required so as to recognize how management and accounting systems may decrease their undesirable sustainability impact.

Sustainability reporting and accounting has become a progressively common exercise in firms attempt to react to criticism and expectations from the company shareholders who seek to be better conversant about the environmental and social influence of the business undertakings. Much of the study in this field of accountability and sustainability reporting and accounting has been inspired by an apparent issue for the natural situation (Williams, Wilmshurst, and Clift, 2011). The journal offers a study and assessment of the magnitude of engagement study in the area of accountability and sustainability accounting which basically draws management accounting and critical accounting so as to offer the case for advanced study engagement with sustainability reporting and accounting practice.

Adams, C., 2013. Sustainability reporting and performance management in universities: Challenges and benefits.Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal,4(3), pp.384-392.

Ball, A., Grubnic, S. and Birchall, J., 2014. 11 Sustainability accounting and accountability in the public sector. Sustainability accounting and accountability, p.176.

Bebbington, J., Unerman, J. and O’Dwyer, B., 2014. Sustainability accounting and accountability. Routledge.

Fonseca, A., Macdonald, A., Dandy, E. and Valenti, P., 2011. The state of sustainability reporting at Canadian universities. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 12(1), pp.22-40.

Gray, R., Adams, C. and Owen, D., 2014. Accountability, social responsibility and sustainability: Accounting for society and the environment. Pearson Higher Ed.

Joseph, G., 2012. Ambiguous but tethered: An accounting basis for sustainability reporting. Critical perspectives on Accounting, 23(2), pp.93-106.

Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2016. The consequences of mandatory corporate sustainability reporting: evidence from four countries.

Lodhia, S. and Hess, N., 2014. Sustainability accounting and reporting in the mining industry: current literature and directions for future research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 84, pp.43-50.

Milne, M.J. and Gray, R., 2013. W (h) ither ecology? The triple bottom line, the global reporting initiative, and corporate sustainability reporting. Journal of business ethics, 118(1), pp.13-29.

O’Dwyer, B., Owen, D. and Unerman, J., 2011. Seeking legitimacy for new assurance forms: The case of assurance on sustainability reporting. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 36(1), pp.31-52.

Rinaldi, L., Unerman, J. and Tilt, C., 2014. The role of stakeholder engagement and dialogue within the sustainability accounting and reporting process. Sustainability accounting and accountability, pp.86-107.

Williams, B., Wilmshurst, T. and Clift, R., 2011, September. Sustainability reporting by local government in Australia: Current and future prospects. In Accounting Forum (Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 176-186). Elsevier.