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This chapter discusses the role of energy production in the global capitalist economy and its relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular focus on SDG 8 – ‘Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’ – and SDG 12 – ‘Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’. It achieves this by first introducing the Club of Rome report the Limits to Growth which utilised a system dynamics computer model to simulate the interactions of five global economic subsystems (population, food production, industrial production, pollution and consumption of nonrenewable natural resources) (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens III, 1972), the results of which posed serious challenges for global sustainability, to better understand and contextualise unconventional (also referred to as ‘extreme’) and ‘renewable’ energy production as examples of the paradoxical nature of sustainable development in the global capitalist economy. Demonstrating that unconventional energy production methods are much less efficient, more carbon intensive, more environmentally destructive and just as unsustainable, and that renewable energy relies on the extraction of nonrenewable natural resources such as lithium that result in similar environmental and social issues, this chapter will interrogate this and ask the question – is the capitalist system in its current form capable of making ‘sustainable development something more than the oxymoron it appears?’.

The objective of this essay is to examine the extent to which social, environmental and sustainability accounting and reporting (SEA) can or should contribute to shareholder value and, correspondingly, to consider the challenge that SEA can offer to the conventional views of “value” that underpin traditional financial accounting. The essay is then used as a vehicle to introduce some relatively new data about sustainable development that has implications for our consideration of “value”.

Although drawing from a wide range of secondary contextual data, the paper is primarily argumentative and seeks to challenge a number of implicit assumptions within both conventional and more “critical” accounting.

Substantive social and environmental reporting and, especially, high quality reporting on (un)sustainability will demonstrate that modern international financial capitalism and the principle organs which support it are essentially designed to maximise environmental destruction and the erosion of any realistic notion of social justice. This paper seeks to demonstrate this contention and the powerful and fundamental implications that this has for conventional financial reporting and for the superficial and cosmetic adjustments to that reporting through “new models of organisational reporting”.

The paper questions whether any research which is not either cognisant of or directed towards sustainability and/or sustainable development makes any real sense in the context of current data about the planet. More especially, the paper asks whether any notion of “value” employed in the accounting (and wider) literature can be anything other than self‐delusional and empty if it ignores a crucial wider context.

Apart from taking debates about “value” and, especially “shareholder value” into another dimension, the paper is one of the first (at least in accounting as far as I am aware) to formally introduce and confront data about planetary sustainability.

A recent contribution entitled Global Responsibility and the King Reports was made to the literature that represents a significant advancement in the understanding of how standards of good governance are practised. The corpus revealed key insights about macro-institutional governance regimes, yet, extraordinarily little about meso-organisational and even less so, micro-individual corporate governance practice. This study aims to shed light on the micro-individual level of corporate governance practice which has remained obscured by drawing pragmatic insights from the landmark South African King Code experience that may be applied to other governance jurisdictions for global organisational responsibility.

To unearth micro-individual corporate governance code practices, a phenomenological exploration of corporate governance practitioners’ (CGPs) perceptions was conducted. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with senior board members of securities-exchange listed companies were conducted with 10 directors of leading multinational South African corporations listed on Africa’s largest formal financial market; the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Recursive analysis of the qualitative data revealed key attributes that render a corporate governance code “fulfilling” as a consequence of being perceived as subjectively valuable by practitioners who are the ultimate end-users of the King Codes for advancing good corporate governance practice in each of their respective companies.

Two categories of fulfilling micro-perceived value attributes (MPVAs) of corporate governance codes emerged, namely, internal and external MPVAs. The three internal MPVAs are, namely, (I1) Meaningful innovation, (I2) Ethical pragmatism and (I3) Cultural transformation. The three external MPVAs are, namely, (E1) Governance legitimacy, (E2) Societal licencing and (E3) Risk mitigation. From these six attributes, two testable corporate governance code development propositions are advanced, namely, (P1) a corporate governance code with a higher constitution of MPVAs will fulfil CGPs more than one with less. (P2) A more fulfilling corporate governance code will enjoy higher adoption, application and/or compliance rates.

Illumining the subjective experiential perceptions that constitute the fulfilment of a corporate governance code deepens the pragmatic understanding of the “demand-side” or consumption of such codes in practice. Knowing these fulfilling MPVAs may also result in the development of codes that enjoy wider adoption and compliance rates thereby enhancing global corporate responsibility pragmatism through enhanced good governance. This study sheds light on the nexus where normative corporate governance principles and the enactment thereof meet at the coalface of organisational activity with an emphasis on those attributes that render them valuable to practitioners.

Two sets of questions animate this discussion: (1) What is corporate social responsibility? Why is it desirable? How can it be assessed? (2) Why should public relations practitioners be interested in corporate social responsibility?can public relations do to promote corporate social responsibility globally? Drawing on a variety of literature, the authors argue that corporations out of their own self‐interest must embrace a global approach in fulfilling their social responsibility and that public relations professionals have an obligation to carry out that responsibility by recognising in their practices that the most important “corporate” stakeholder is society itself.

The initial rationale for developing integrated reporting included addressing the failures of traditional reporting to address sustainability issues. Subsequently, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) modified its stated objectives to emphasise integrated thinking and value creation. There has been debate on whether the IIRC’s process for developing its integrated reporting framework was subject to regulatory capture by the accounting profession (Flower, 2015; Adams, 2015; Thomson, 2015). This paper aims to provide additional evidence on the extent to which this regulatory capture occurred, with an update on current developments.

Data from interviews with key participants in the integrated reporting framework’s development and the IIRC’s Council and Working Group meeting minutes were analysed to identify to what extent the change in the IIRC’s focus can be explained by regulatory capture theory.

The findings show that the integrated reporting framework’s development was subject to regulatory capture by accountants. However, the extent of capture was mitigated to some extent by processes adopted in its development. This is consistent with regulatory capture theory.

This paper critically examines the debate on the extent to which the sustainability message has been lost as a result of regulatory capture. It provides an in-depth analysis of the IIRC’s treatment of sustainability which explores the application of regulatory capture theory and examines evidence not considered in previous studies.

This study aims to examine the uptake of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Asia Pacific region and to explore the extent to which countries in the region are transitioning towards a sustainable enterprise economy (SEE) and the links between the two, thereby connecting the uptake of CSR at the organisational level to the configuration and transformation of societies.

In order to examine the uptake of CSR in the Asia Pacific region and assess the extent to which countries are transitioning towards the SEE, this study compiles data from a selection of CSR‐related indicators that are globally harmonised and globally recognised as well as national performance indicators that not only set the operational context for organisations but also help to measure the ultimate impacts of policies, practices and activities by organisations on national conditions.

Based on the preliminary study undertaken into global national indicators in the Asia Pacific region, there is a need for more comprehensive indicators that capture key elements of a SEE. The study envisages the creation of a “Global SEE dashboard” of actual, real‐time key performance indicators that can help facilitate stewardship by societies towards the Global SEE.

By underscoring the needs, opportunities and challenges for CSR capacity‐building in the Asia Pacific region and for countries to transition effectively towards the SEE, this study adds value to the efforts of public and private policy makers concerned with CSR, sustainability and governance as well as practitioners and members of civil society interested in responsible global citizenship.