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This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and interpreting them as biodiversity accounts produced by an interested party. The authors aim to contribute to the accounting history literature by extending the form of accounting studied to include nature diaries as well as by exploring historical ecological accounts, as well as contributing to the burgeoning literature on accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting.

The authors’ method involves analysing the content of Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals by producing an 18th-century biodiversity account of species of flora and fauna and then interpretively drawing out themes from the Journals. The authors then provide a Whitean extinction account by comparing current species' status with White's biodiversity account from 250 years ago.

This paper uses Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals as a basis for comparing biodiversity and natural capital 250 years ago with current species' status according to extinction threat and conservation status. Further the paper shows how early nature diary recording represents early (and probably the only) forms of accounting for biodiversity and extinction. The authors also highlight themes within White's accounts including social emancipation, problematisation, aesthetic elements and an example of an early audit of biodiversity accounting.

There are limitations to analysing Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals given that the only available source is an edited version. The authors therefore interpret their data as accounts which are indicative of biodiversity and species abundance rather than an exactly accurate account.

From the authors’ analysis and reflections, the authors suggest that contemporary biodiversity accounting needs to incorporate a combination of narrative, data accounting and pictorial/aesthetic representation if it is to provide a rich and accurate report of biodiversity and nature. The authors also suggest that extinction accounting should draw on historical data in order to demonstrate change in natural capital over time.

Social implications include the understanding gleaned from the authors’ analysis of the role of Gilbert White as a nature diarist in society and the contribution made over time by his Journals and other writings to the development of nature accounting and recording, as well as to one’s understanding and knowledge of species of flora and fauna.

To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to analyse and interpret nature diaries as accounts of biodiversity and extinction.

The study aims to shed light on the historical and contemporary trends of biodiversity accounting literature, while simultaneously offering insights into the future of research in this sector. The paper also aims to raise awareness among accounting researchers about their role in preserving biodiversity and informing improvements in policy and practice in this area.

The Bibliometrix R-package is used to carry out an algorithmic historiography. The reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS) methodology is implemented. It is a unique approach to bibliometric analysis that allows researchers to identify and examine historical patterns in scientific literature.

The work provides a distinct and comprehensive discussion of the four distinct periods demarcating the progression of scientific discourse regarding biodiversity accounting. These periods are identified as Origins (1767–1864), Awareness (1865–1961), Consolidation (1962–1995) and Acceleration (1996–2021). The study offers an insightful analysis of the main thematic advancements, interpretative paradigm shifts and theoretical developments that occurred during these periods.

The paper offers a significant contribution to the existing academic debate on the prospects for accounting scholars to concentrate their research efforts on biodiversity and thereby promote advancements in policy and practice in this sector.

The article represents the first example of using an algorithmic historiography approach to examine the corpus of literature dealing with biodiversity accounting. The value of this study comes from the fusion of historical methodology and perspective. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first scientific investigation applying RPYS in the accounting sector.

With the ongoing digitalization of the construction industry (CI), situational awareness (SA) is becoming increasingly important in construction management. The purpose of this article is to identify the requirements of SA system development in the CI and to provide recommendations for the future development of SA systems.

In this exploratory multi-case research study, a literature review and five Finnish cases were used to gather the evidence on how system developers have planned SA systems and what motives and objectives were behind their development efforts. An analysis of the cases, along with a review of SA models and concepts from other sectors, was used to identify requirements and deficiencies of the SA systems developed by CI actors.

This study reveals deficiencies in the recent SA systems. The systems seemed to be based on traditional project models, in which the role of the individual as the creator and interpreter of an SA system is still significant. Major requirements and future development of the systems are related to better SA levels of perception and projection and data quality.

This study contributes to an understudied area of SA in the construction context and provides new insights into how construction companies develop their SA systems. The main study limitations are its geographically limited case selection and the limited generalizability of the results.

The research (1) shows what requirements and systemic weaknesses SA developers in the CI must consider in future development work and (2) shows developers the requirements to obtain holistic SA.

The study provides insights into the content of newly developed SA models and integrates developers' requirements into the SA theory.