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This case examines the concept and role of adaptability in destination governance, particularly as it relates to hosting a mega-event such as the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. It describes how the Resort Municipality of Whistler in British Columbia, Canada, used its broad sustainability-focused destination governance system to guide and manage relationships and outcomes related to the Games. Through its strategic and adaptive interactions with the International Olympic Committee and the Vancouver Organizing Committee, the Resort Municipality of Whistler leveraged unprecedented sustainability benefits from this mega-event.

The author aims to study and predict the sustainability governance performances of firms using an advanced grey prediction model. The case implication of the prediction model is also studied considering select firms in the Indian context.

The author has proposed an advanced grey prediction model, the first-entry grey prediction model (FGM (1, 1)) for forecasting the sustainability governance performances of firms. The proposed model is tested using the periodic data of sustainability governance performances of 10 Indian firms.

The author observes that the majority of firms (6 out of 10) show dipping performances for sustainability governance for the future predicted period. This throws insights into the direction of improving good governance practices for Indian firms.

The idea and motivation for sustainability-focussed governance need a bi-directional focus from the side of managers that act as the agents and from the side of shareholders that act as the principals, as seen from an agency theory perspective for sustainability governance.

Sustainability governance culture can be inculcated to a firm at the strategic level by having a bi-directional focus from managers and shareholders, so as to enhance the social and environmental sustainability performances.

The governance performance evaluations for firms particularly in developing countries were not dated back more than a decade or two. Hence, the author implements a prediction model that can be best suited, when there are small periodic data sets available for prediction.

The first purpose of this paper is to investigate whether corporate governance mechanisms, in particular the characteristics of the board, audit committee and risk management committee, are associated with the level of disclosure in integrated reports of South African listed firms. The second purpose of this paper is to analyze how integrated reporting (IR) affects the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This paper uses a mixed methods approach. First, a multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on IR practices of a sample of South African listed firms during the period between 2019 and 2021. Using the content analysis method to measure the level of IR, disclosures were measured using a disclosure index consisting of 60 information items developed from the IIRC framework and previous studies. Second, based on a database containing 33 articles in the Meditari Accountancy Research journal with a publication date from 2013 to 2021, a systematic review of the academic literature focusing on IR is conducted to analyze how IR influences SDGs.

The results indicate that board size, board independence and risk management committee independence have a positive effect on IR practices. However, board expertise, board activity, audit committee independence, audit committee size, audit committee expertise, audit committee meetings, risk management committee expertise, risk management committee meetings, risk management committee size and the auditor type are negatively related to IR practices. The results also indicate that IR has an important role in achieving SDGs by relying on integrated thinking that integrates sustainability into the enterprise’s strategy and helps the integration of capitals. In addition, sustainable business models create long-term values.

This study was limited to a sample size of 75 firms, which is country-specific; however, it sets the tone for future empirical research on the subject matter. This study provides an avenue for future research in the area of corporate governance and IR practices in other emerging countries, especially other African countries.

This study provides useful insights for managers and policymakers to better understand which corporate governance mechanisms can best encourage a company to improve IR practices.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is, perhaps, the first to examine the effect of risk management committee characteristics on IR practices. This study provides new insight into the contribution of accounting research toward the achievement of SDGs.

This study aims to investigate the performance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of public listed companies (PLCs) in Malaysia through their SDGs disclosure. In addition, it examines the impact of integrated reporting (IR) quality on the SDGs’ performance.

Data are collected from an initial sample of Malaysia’s top 100 market-leading PLCs from 2016 to 2020. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to test the research hypotheses.

The results reveal an increasing trend in SDGs’ performance. Companies contributing toward the 17 SDGs grew from 14% in 2016 to 78% in 2020. On a priority basis, the average score of the five years showed that the Malaysian PLCs are paying more attention to SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth (53%); SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production (43%); and SDG 13 Climate Action (42%). In addition, the fixed effects regression analysis proves that companies with higher IR quality are more likely to provide better SDGs disclosure.

This study provides insights to policymakers, investors and management on the vital role of businesses in supporting the SDGs’ achievement and how IR reveals a turning point in achieving the United Nations SDGs’ agenda.

This study provides a clearer understanding of the activities seeking to achieve the SDGs and the influence of IR on them. This opens the debate for future research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a pioneer in examining whether the quality of IR influences SDGs disclosure among large companies in one of the emerging economies in Southeast Asia in its early application stage.

Despite striving for resilience and a sustainable urban future, European cities face a multitude of crisis caused by both natural and human-induced risks. This paper asks two key questions: How have cities experienced and managed crises situations they encountered? and What are the plans and actions for embedding sustainability at a local level within a clear decision-making structure? Hence, it aims to examine urban resilience in the context of urban crisis and the associated health concerns that took place because of crisis situations, while identifying sustainable urban development initiatives and strategies that were conceived and implemented beyond crisis.

An evidence-based analytical approach is undertaken following two lines of inquiry. The first is case-based and identifies 11 cities that have experienced crisis situations and a further 10 cities that have instigated urban resilience strategies. The second is theme-based and engages with identifying strategies relevant to sustainable urban development at city and project levels. The outcomes of the two lines of inquiry are verified by mapping the lessons learned from the analysis to recent international guidance and a further co-visioning workshop with 6 experts.

The evidence-based analysis reveals key lessons which were classified under two primary types of findings: (a) lessons learned for a future urban resilience resulting from the 1st line of Inquiry (case-based) and (b) lessons learned for a future sustainable urban development resulting from the 2nd line of inquiry (theme-based). The verified lessons provide four areas that can be utilised as key priorities for future urban resilience and sustainable urban development including (a) Governance, effective communication, and decision making for city resilience and urban sustainability; (b) the social dimension of resilience and participatory practices for sustainable urban development; (c) from implicit strategies for health to positive impact on health; and (d) diversification of initiatives and localisation of sustainable development endeavours.

There is always limitation on what a bibliometrics analysis can offer in terms of the nature of evidence and the type of knowledge generated from the investigation. This limitation manifests in the fact that the analysis engages with the body of knowledge but not based on engaging physically or socially with the contexts within which the cases took place or through empirical investigations including systematic observations, focused interviews, and attitude surveys. While the study does not generate empirical findings, the rigour of the bibliometrics analysis offers a credible and reliable evidence on how cities experienced and managed crises situations and their current plans and priority actions for embedding and localising sustainable development measures.

This research conveys significant implications for policy, practice, and action in that it crystalises the view that understanding urban resilience and sustainability, at the city or urban level, requires coupling the two. The findings offer a solid foundation for a more contextualised, evidence-based examination of urban resilience and sustainability during and beyond crisis. Highlighting urban and health challenges that emerged from experienced crisis situations, how these were managed and developing an understanding of sustainable urban development and local resilience strategies elucidate insights that can be adopted and acted upon by city councils and built environment practitioners.

The analysis provides comprehensive insights into urban resilience and sustainable urban development at both city and continental Europe scales in the form of key lessons that represent the first step towards developing rudiments for building a better urban future. Little is known about resilience and sustainability at these scales. The originality of this work lies in the breadth and depth for capturing an inclusive understanding of urban resilience and sustainable urban development based on systematic inquiry and scrutinising the body of knowledge emerged over the past 2 decades.

This study aims to explore barriers and pathways to a whole-institution governance of sustainability within the working structures of universities.

This paper draws on multi-year interviews and hierarchical structure analysis of ten universities in Canada, the USA, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil, the UK and The Netherlands. The paper addresses existing literature that championed further integration between the two organizational sides of universities (academic and operations) and suggests approaches for better embedding sustainability into four primary domains of activity (education, research, campus operations and community engagement).

This research found that effective sustainability governance needs to recognise and reconcile distinct cultures, diverging accountability structures and contrasting manifestations of central-coordination and distributed-agency approaches characteristic of the university’s operational and academic activities. The positionality of actors appointed to lead institution-wide embedding influenced which domain received most attention. The paper concludes that a whole-institution approach would require significant tailoring and adjustments on both the operational and academic sides to be successful.

Based on a review of sustainability activities at ten universities around the world, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the governance implications of integrating sustainability into the four domains of university activity. It discusses how best to work across the operational/academic divide and suggests principles for adopting a whole institution approach to sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which sustainability disclosures in a strategically important South African company have changed, in the light of the work by King.

The paper takes the form of a content analysis of the sustainability reports of a single reporting entity, Denel (Pty) Ltd (Denel), the largest manufacturer of defence equipment in South Africa. The computer assisted textual analysis software programme CATPAC II™ was used to undertake the investigation.

The paper finds that the emphasis of the sustainability reports changed each year over the period of the study. However, all the reports embody the principles and philosophical aspects of King (in 2002 and 2009). A year on year comparison of the 20 concepts identified as common to each data set over the period of the study found no substantial differences between them. This finding suggests an underlying consistency in their use by the prepares of the sustainability reports.

This research is limited to the analysis of the sustainability reports contained within Denel's 2007 to 2011 annual reports.

The use of research techniques such as those described in this paper has practical implications for future research. Where legislative requirement requires corporate social responsibility reports to be prepared by private and public sector entities, this technique would be especially useful to establish the similarities and differences between them. Differences and the extent of the differences will be of interest to stakeholders groups, preparers and researchers as they will indicate how organisations in the different sectors view sustainability.

Although sustainability reporting has been the subject of extensive research, longitudinal studies are limited. This longitudinal study contributes to the limited CSR literature focusing on developing countries and, in particular, African countries, as well as on the defence or armaments industry.

This study aims to examine the association between community engagement, community commitment and sustainability of public–private partnership (PPP) projects in Uganda.

This study adopted a cross-sectional and quantitative approach. Data were collected using a questionnaire from 42 PPP projects in Uganda.

The study found that community engagement and commitment are all positively and significantly associated with the sustainability of PPP projects in Uganda. Results also show that community commitment mediates community engagement and project sustainability.

The study results imply that for sustainability to be achieved, communities must be engaged in project activities such as planning, design and implementation to boost their commitment to project sustainability.

The sustainability of PPP projects is an emerging phenomenon. This paper contributes to scanty literature on ensuring the sustainability of PPP projects from a developing country’s perspective.