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1 – 10 of over 51000Owing to the worldwide outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2, social media conversations have increased. Given the increasing pressure from regulatory authorities and society, green…
Abstract
Purpose
Owing to the worldwide outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2, social media conversations have increased. Given the increasing pressure from regulatory authorities and society, green accounting – as a dimension of sustainable development – remains the most discussed topic on most social media platforms. This study aims to incorporate a technological approach to green accounting and sustainability to enhance the innovation process inside and outside organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the hermeneutic phenomenological technique to investigate Twitter content. Tweets were subjected to a manual coding process to analyze their content, including recent advancements, challenges, cross-country initiatives and promotion strategies in green accounting. Public perception of green accounting and the COP26 climate summit was also studied.
Findings
Tweeters view green accounting favorably; however, they are apprehensive about its implementation. Regarding the challenges in green accounting, “corporate green washing” was the most tweeted content. The UK was the top-rated nation with respect to green accounting development. Furthermore, the most discussed breakthrough was the application of artificial intelligence in the domain of green accounting functions. However, Twitter users were observed to have directed heavy criticism at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
Originality/value
This study’s primary innovation is its integration of emerging technologies such as machine learning and data mining with social media platforms such as Twitter. Incorporating manual coding of tweets is a rigorous procedure that amplifies the strength of machine learning software’s auto-coding feature.
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This study uses a meta-analysis approach to analyse the impact of applying corporate green accounting practices as vital sustainable development tools on firm performance. This…
Abstract
Purpose
This study uses a meta-analysis approach to analyse the impact of applying corporate green accounting practices as vital sustainable development tools on firm performance. This study aims to examine the moderating effects of country-specific variables and characteristics on the association between corporate green accounting and firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Three databases were used for a meta-analysis of 68 independent studies involving 19,625 subjects conducted over 25 years from 1996 to 2020.
Findings
The results show that corporate green accounting positively affects firm performance, but country-specific variables do not moderate this association. The positive association between corporate green accounting and firm performance was enhanced when it was measured in terms of environmental costs. Subgroup analyses revealed that study characteristics are significant source of heterogeneity in the corporate green accounting indicators-firm performance association.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that firms should strategise to integrate environmental costs into their respective financial accounting frameworks, which would help managers justify the contribution of their firms towards environmental protection.
Social implications
Accessing accurate and timely information on corporate environmental functioning can assist national policymakers in framing appropriate legislation on environmental protection and sustainable development.
Originality/value
Although meta-analysis has been used previously in accounting research (Guthrie and Murthy, 2009; Alcouffe et al., 2019), to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use a meta-analytical technique to examine the impact of corporate green accounting on firm performance.
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Tarek Rana, Alan Lowe and Md Saiful Azam
This study examines green investment reforms carried out in Bangladesh. The reform process curated significant changes by promoting green investment and fostering the adoption of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines green investment reforms carried out in Bangladesh. The reform process curated significant changes by promoting green investment and fostering the adoption of risk management (RM) rationalities. This study’s focus is on revealing changes in behaviour and explaining how RM can act as an effective generator of climate change mitigation practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on Foucault's concept of governmentality, the authors apply a “green governmentality” interpretive lens to analyse interviews and documentary evidence, adopting a qualitative case study approach. The authors explore how green governmentality generates RM rationalities and techniques to induce policies and practices within banks and financial institutions (FIs) for climate change mitigation purposes.
Findings
The findings provide valuable insights into the reform process and influence of RM rationalities in the context of environmental concerns. The authors find that the reforms and creation of RM rationalities affect the management of climate mitigation practices within banks and FIs and identify the processes through which the RM techniques are transformed as climate concerns are emphasised. The authors illustrate green governmentality as persuasive strategies, which have generated specific ways of seeing climate change reality and new ways of inserting RM into organisational activities, through the green governmentality effects they created. These reforms made climate change actionable and governable through the production of RM rationalities, supported by accounting conceptualisations and processes.
Research limitations/implications
The insights from this study can assist with how we act upon questions of climate change from an RM perspective. Governments, policymakers and regulators who develop climate change-related laws, regulations and policies can draw on these insights to help foster green governmentality for climate change mitigation actions informed by RM practices.
Originality/value
This study offers insights into how climate change is not simply a biophysical reality but a site of power-knowledge dynamics where RM rationalities are constructed, and accounting processes are transformed. The authors show the application of RM and accounting efforts to change investment practices and how changes were encouraged and promoted by using regulation as a persuasive force on knowledgeable subjects rather than a repressive or oppressive power. The analytic power of green governmentality can be applied to increase understanding of how RM rationality contribute to the creation of useful conceptualisations of climate change and provide insights into how organisations respond to green governmentality.
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Manufacturing and service companies are likely to make a variety of costs possible. Environmental costs are one of those costs. Environmental performance is one of the most…
Abstract
Purpose
Manufacturing and service companies are likely to make a variety of costs possible. Environmental costs are one of those costs. Environmental performance is one of the most important factors in assessing a company’s success. For environmental accounting, companies need to work together as teams of system designers, chemists, engineers, production managers, operators, employees, purchasing circle and accountants (those who may have never worked together before).
Design/methodology/approach
Nowadays, most of the companies are facing environmental issues and are seeking an appropriate way to report and disclose the information to the public. The environmental pollution issue is among the most important problems of today’s human society. Therefore, this is very important to use environmental accounting as an attempt towards protecting the environment.
Findings
Green accounting is a type of accounting that attempts to factor environmental costs into the financial results of operations. Apart from answering the question whether the economy has performed sustainably during one or more accounting periods, green accounting indicators [green gross domestic product (GDP)] can be used in policy formulation and evaluation. Green GDP calculations can contribute to raise awareness for sustainability concerns among national governments/policy-makers, who tend to concentrate on their countries’ fast economic development.
Practical implications
Environmental accounting can be applied to large and small companies in various industries, as well as in manufacturing or service sectors. Environmental accounting can be applied on a large or a smaller scale in a systematic manner for the required bases.
Social implications
Environmental accounting requires the collection of information from all the groups. People of various groups need to talk to each other to achieve a common vision and understanding of environmental accounting and to realize this vision.
Originality/value
Undoubtedly, to establish an ideal system of environmental accounting in the country, accountants can become a powerful forearm of the government regarding economical and financial controls. To achieve this goal, environmental accounting objectives and tasks should be identified and defined in detail, and the standards, rules and criteria should be grounded and codified based on reasonable and practical principles.
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Sonja Gallhofer and Jim Haslam
Believes that green accounting should be rendered open and accountable and be properly subject to a democratic process to avoid shrouding it in a mystifying expertise. Offers a…
Abstract
Believes that green accounting should be rendered open and accountable and be properly subject to a democratic process to avoid shrouding it in a mystifying expertise. Offers a timely and substantive contribution to the debate about how green accounting might be regulated. Believes the accounting profession will stop some distance short of recommending a substantive interventionist regulation. Feels that a voluntarist and market‐based stance is likely to be advocated or preferred. Makes out the case for a substantive interventionist form of regulation and points to the need in practice for something better than the status quo. Seeks to justify an interventionist stance in terms consistent with critical theory.
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Haruna Maama and Kingsley Opoku Appiah
Reporting on only the financial performance of an organisation is no longer the focus of reporting because, gradually, investors and other stakeholders demand that companies also…
Abstract
Purpose
Reporting on only the financial performance of an organisation is no longer the focus of reporting because, gradually, investors and other stakeholders demand that companies also report on their effect on the environment and the society. Accounting and reporting for the environment has, therefore, increasingly become important to stakeholders and organisations because the effect of an organisation’s environmental and social performance on its financial health. The purpose of this study is to examine the extend of voluntary green accounting practice of companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on content analysis of 202 annual reports of 23 listed firms in Ghana, from 2006 to 2015.
Findings
The mining, oil and gas sector has integrated environmental sustainability information in their accounting system. With regards to the nature of green disclosure, the content analysis depicts that only positive qualitative disclosures were provided in the annual reports. Again, almost all the companies increased the quality and quantity of environmental disclosures over the years.
Practical implications
The service and manufacturing sectors should integrate environmental sustainability information in their accounting system. This, in turn, may enhance their legitimacy to access critical resources for survival.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the green and social reporting practices literature from Ghana, a sub-Sahara Africa country.
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Raphael Junger da Silva, Roberto Tommasetti, Monica Zaidan Gomes and Marcelo Álvaro da Silva Macedo
This paper aims to evaluate the undergraduate and graduate accounting students’ perceptions of sustainable (or green) information technology (IT) and information system (IS…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate the undergraduate and graduate accounting students’ perceptions of sustainable (or green) information technology (IT) and information system (IS) practices and their contribution to its implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
A five-point Likert scale questionnaire was applied to 361 undergraduate and graduate accounting students in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in eight higher education institutions (HEIs). Data are analyzed with SPSS.
Findings
There is a high perception of importance regarding IT/IS sustainability practices among the accounting students tested, although respondents are not comfortable with predominantly technical IT/IS topics. However, students are divided on the significance of the accountant’s contribution to these practices, confirming that reflection on their future role is still a challenge for them and their HEIs. The female sub-sample attaches significantly greater importance than the male sample to the accountant role in the implementation of green IT practices.
Research limitations/implications
The authors have proposed a novel integrative framework of IT/IS theories related to sustainability and accounting, and how accounting professionals could participate in the “neutral arena” of the education for sustainable development (SD).
Practical implications
Findings could be useful for educators and coordinators of sustainability of IT/IS in accounting courses, stimulating brainstorming on the accountant’s role in assisting organizations in green IT/IS strategies, best practice and implementation.
Originality/value
This study makes an original contribution to the research base of SD in HEIs. The lack of awareness identified in the study could be elaborated to stimulate discussion about the central role of the accountant in SD processes within organizations.
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Bishawjit Chandra Deb, Md. Mominur Rahman and Muhammad Shajib Rahman
This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental management accounting (EMA) on manufacturing companies’ environmental and financial performance in Bangladesh. Thus…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental management accounting (EMA) on manufacturing companies’ environmental and financial performance in Bangladesh. Thus, this research recognizes essential factors such as EMA, environmental performance (EP), financial performance (FP), environmental information systems (EIS), knowledge management (KM), green innovation and energy efficiency (EE).
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a quantitative approach and uses 323 responses from the manufacturing firms. This research tests the study model through the “Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling” (PLS-SEM) technique using Smart PLS v3.3 software. This research uses AMOS v24 and 40% sample consideration to check the robustness. The study passes various model fit measures, i.e. reliability, validity, factor analysis and goodness of fit.
Findings
The research finds that EMA is positively and significantly associated with EP and FP. The study also finds a substantial relationship between recognized factors with EMA and EP. This research connects the stakeholder theory and institutional theory to the EMA model and shows the pressures from stakeholders and institutions reassuring the manufacturing firms to implement EMA. This research evidences that EMA enhances EP and FP.
Originality/value
The policymakers, regulators and government can consider these findings to formulate policy regarding companies’ EP and FP. Particularly, company executives can focus on KM, EIS, green innovation and EE factors for EP and FP.
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The purpose of this paper is to revisit the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal which was published in 1991 and which sought to stimulate the “green…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal which was published in 1991 and which sought to stimulate the “green accounting” debate, to evaluate that issue and, in particular, to examine what we might learn about the development of the social and environmental accounting literature in the last 20 years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes the form of a discursive, polemical essay.
Findings
The special issue exhibited a wide range of approaches and possibilities; it also exhibited some theoretical naivety and a charming optimism and fetching trust in the power of reasonable argument. Retrospectively, the field has expanded considerably and has made many advances in theoretical and empirical understanding but researchers appear to be less willing to examine the fundamental issues that originally motivated the development of the field.
Research limitations/implications
The implications and limitations stem from the ambitions of this discursive attempt to encourage debate of a more direct and confrontational nature – both within and at the margins of social, environmental and sustainability accounting.
Originality/value
The originality and value of the paper is in its critical engagement with the literature and ideas of social accounting, which is the generic descriptor used in the paper to include “green accounting”. It provides not only an analysis of the achievement of the work to date but some critical pointers to the work that still needs to be done.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how a particular form of environmental accounting, energy accounting, is negotiated in practice and how energy accounting may act as a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how a particular form of environmental accounting, energy accounting, is negotiated in practice and how energy accounting may act as a productive organizing device in organizational contexts. Energy accounting is considered as performative in organizational practices rather than as a representation of resource use.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a longitudinal case study of the design phase in a construction project. Data collection entailed observational and document studies as well as interviews with those involved in the design processes. This paper draws on actor-network theory, notably the notions of framing and overflowing, in analyzing the role of energy accounting in design processes and in affecting organizational practice.
Findings
The paper provides several insights regarding energy accounting in the making, energy accounting’s performative role in enacting possible futures, the narrative importance of numbers, and the entangled nature of designing, accounting and organizing practices. The findings demonstrate the strong links between accounting and organizing.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the extant literature on environmental accounting by directing attention to how such accounting practices contribute to forming rather than just informing management decisions. By focusing on how the calculative practices of making such accounts mediate ideas and help assemble new entities, this paper provides useful insights into the performative role of environmental accounting.
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