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The research objectives of this chapter are threefold. First, we explore what is the current status of corporate water accounting tools and methodologies. Second, we develop a framework for analyzing corporate water accounting and reporting. Third, we investigate what French CAC 40 companies account for and report in relations to the water challenge.

We collected annual and sustainability reports from all CAC 40 companies as well as their water Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) responses when available. We also collected all publically available corporate water accounting methodologies to assess the international water accounting field. We coded the data according to our designed framework via qualitative data analysis software.

Although water is seen as equally important to climate change (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 2009), French multinationals have a very immature reporting on this topic. Most still do not report to the water disclosure questionnaire of CDP in 2014 and rely on basic figures such as global water consumption. We analyzed the multiple water accounting, reporting, and risk assessment frameworks that have mushroomed since 2000, and question the impact of this fragmented field on the maturity of the water performance reporting by French companies.

The developed framework for analysis of water reporting can be used for sustainability teaching at university level.

We developed the first comprehensive analytical framework for water corporate reporting assessment. Moreover, this research is the first comprehensive study of water reporting in Europe. We therefore contribute to extend our comprehension of corporate maturity in water stewardship and water performance reporting.

In decades since the Rio Summit, freshwater has become an increasingly prominent issue in the global arena and attention has turned to the role of the corporate sector. Various (predominantly voluntary) corporate water accounting standards currently exist, from water-related components in wide-ranging sustainability standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative through to standards specifically focused on water and/or a particular industry. While academic research on adoption of these standards is sparse, initial findings reveal generally poor water reporting in terms of both quality and quantity. In future, the major areas where reporting (and standards) could be improved are the provision of site-level water information and the assessment of water risk throughout the supply chain.

This research aims to understand how companies communicate their understanding of water-related challenges and their responses to identify new pathways for addressing this challenge to further advance rising interest in water sustainability strategies of corporations.

Through a content analysis of corporate disclosures, this paper identifies the actions and challenges reported by 35 FTSE 100 companies. These are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to explore variations in the subject of disclosure and the narrative framing.

The findings identify a clear split across the types of water sustainability reporting according to the industrial sector and subject of disclosure, linking to different narratives used according to legitimacy pressures.

This paper finds that energy, materials and consumer staples sectors consistently outperform other sectors on the reporting of water issues and the scope which is covered. This has implications for the design of regulations and incentives to increase water sustainability management activities in large companies, which currently under-report.

This paper highlights the need for policy implementation to further integrate water-related topics into company reporting and identifies situations where the narrative disclosed may distort the underlying situation that is being communicated.

This paper explores the narratives used in company reporting to identify the challenges related to water sustainability and the actions taken in response. This can contribute to developing a pathway towards increased water sustainability (e.g. through new policy design).

This paper aims to respond to increasing interest in the intersection between accounting and human rights and to explore whether access to information might itself constitute a human right. As human rights have “moral force”, establishing access to information as a human right may act as a catalyst for policy change. The paper also aims to focus on environmental information, and specifically the case of corporate water‐related disclosures.

This paper follows Griffin and Sen, who suggest that a candidate human right might be recognised when it is consistent with “founding” human rights, it is important and it may be influenced by societal action. The specific case for access to corporate water‐related information to constitute a human right is evaluated against these principles.

Access to corporate water‐related disclosures may indeed constitute a human right. Political participation is a founding human right, water is a critical subject of political debate, water‐related information is required in order for political participation and the state is in a position to facilitate provision of such information. Corporate water disclosures may not necessarily be in the form of annual sustainability reports, however, but may include reporting by government agencies via public databases and product labelling. A countervailing corporate right to privacy is considered and found to be relevant but not necessarily incompatible with heightened disclosure obligations.

This paper seeks to make both a theoretical and a practical contribution. Theoretically, the paper explores how reporting might be conceived from a rights‐based perspective and provides a method for determining which disclosures might constitute a human right. Practically, the paper may assist those calling for improved disclosure regulation by showing how such calls might be embedded within human rights discourse.

This paper aims to examine whether the disclosure obligations in areas of water stress required under the revised Global Reporting Initiative standard (GRI) 303 Water and Effluents, 2018 will improve the quality of corporate water reporting. As a key new requirement is to disclose the impact of water withdrawals from (and discharges to) areas experiencing water stress, the authors examine the ambiguity of the term “water stress” and the extent to which following the GRI’s guidance to use the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas and/or the Water Risk Filter will enable quality corporate water reporting.

The study is informed by the notion of public interest reporting, on the basis that the provision of contextual water information is in the public interest. To explore the ambiguity of the term “water stress”, the authors conduct a semi-systematic review of hydrology literature on water stress and water stress indices. To explore the efficacy of using the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas and/or the Water Risk Filter, the authors review the operation and underlying data sources of both databases.

The term “water stress” has a range of definitions and the indicators of water stress encompass a wide variety of differing factors. The Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas and the Water Risk Filter use a combination of different risk indicators and are based on source data of varying quality and granularity. Further, different weightings of water risk information are available to the user, which yield different evaluations of water stress. A variety of approaches are permitted under GRI 303.

Effective implementation of GRI 303 may be impeded by the ambiguity of the term “water stress”, varying quality and availability of the water stress information and the fact that different water stress calculation options are offered by the water databases. The authors suggest that the GRI closely monitor compliance, implementation approaches and scientific developments in relation to the water stress requirements with a view to providing further guidance and improving future iterations of the standard.

Whilst there have been many calls for improved contextual water reporting, few previous studies have explored the challenges to implementing reporting requirements related to the determination of “water stress”.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate current practices of water governance disclosure in the food, beverage and tobacco industry and to determine whether the quality of disclosure has a positive association with integrated reporting (IR).

A water governance disclosure index was developed that used content analysis to code the latest standalone social, environmental and sustainability reports or integrated reports of 49 companies in the food, beverage and tobacco industry. The selected companies are listed on three indices, the ASX, JSE and DJSI. This was followed by quantitatively testing the association between IR and the quality of water governance disclosure, as measured against the qualitatively developed index.

It was found that the 18 IR companies’ water governance disclosure quality significantly outperformed the 31 companies in the non-IR group, with a calculated index score of 71.67% and 40.97%, respectively.

The evidence indicates that IR is superior to non-IR water governance disclosure, and the study, therefore, contributes to the literature around the legitimacy theory by concluding that IR is supportive to companies to legitimise their being.

The originality of this paper stems from the comparison of water governance disclosures between IR and non-IR firms. Considering that IR preparers outperformed companies in the non-IR group could provide insights to academics, regulators and reporting organisations that IR could be used to enhance water governance disclosure.

This paper aims to develop a framework to examine corporate water reporting (CWR) that considers the context in emerging economies and determine if and how companies are addressing the distinct water-related challenges and opportunities that they face in any given location.

This study combines a concise profile of the context of water resources management in Peru with a review of CWR guidelines and thematic content analysis of water information in sustainability reports for 34 companies operating in Peru. These data are then used to inform the development of a CWR typology via the use of a cluster analysis complemented by within-case and cross-case qualitative analysis of companies.

This study highlights the incomplete nature of most CWR practices of companies in Peru, with an emphasis on internal firm operations. Where companies do provide information on water risk and stakeholder engagement, there is insufficient detail to provide a clear picture of contributions to sustainable water management at the local level. The main drivers for CWR in Peru appear to be pressure from international markets, regulation and other normative issues.

The findings indicate that companies need to place more emphasis on the local context when reporting on water risks and activities, which could be achieved through the use of CWR frameworks that integrate both international and sectoral CWR guidelines, along with indicators related to good water governance, water, sanitation and hygiene service delivery and the sustainable development goals, as together they provide a more comprehensive reflection of the broader challenges and opportunities related to corporate water management.

This paper presents the first framework specifically developed to evaluate CWR practices with consideration of the context of an emerging economy.

The purpose of this study is to explore the sustainability reporting of a public sector organisation (PSO). This study focuses on socio-environmental practices of a major agro-economic platform in Australia – the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to provide a unique perspective on water resource management and sustainability.

This longitudinal qualitative case study collects published data from the MDBA’s annual reports over 21 years (1998–2018) and considers economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability using legitimacy and institutional theory.

This study finds that the MDBA’s sustainability reporting is influenced by its response to the Water Act 2007 and the Basin Plan 2012 regulations and to maintain its legitimacy with stakeholders. The MDBA wished to pursue sustainability through integrating these regulations complemented by stakeholder expectations. Although all categories increased in reporting, the environment category has the highest primacy in achieving a healthy basin through sustainable water management for the long-term benefit of the stakeholders.

This study contributes to the PSOs sustainability reporting literature. Particularly, this study provides insights of sustainability reporting patterns and practices over a long period through a longitudinal study. This study contributes new knowledge on the awareness of PSOs sustainability practice which has implications for governments, regulators, policymakers, managers and other stakeholders.

The Australian PSOs setting is under-researched from the perspective of a regulatory framework. The MDBA case provides unique insights on water resource management and sustainability which has value for many countries around the world.

The study seeks to add to the understanding of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting practices.

Semi-structured interviews and municipal water utility publications are analysed to identify factors which have influenced the diffusion and subsequent decline of environmental reporting practices within the Finnish water sector.

The findings suggest a dynamic view of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting, showing that a variety of forces operated jointly over time. The initial swift diffusion may be mostly explained from the perspectives of fad and fashion, whereas the subsequent gradual decline of such reporting appears to have been driven mainly by internal organizational factors and a lack of outside pressure.

The paper relies on a qualitative dataset, implying that extensive care is needed when seeking to generalise or apply the findings to different contexts or organizational fields.

The findings presented here should prove interesting for public sector managers, who are considering how, if at all, their organization should engage in social and environmental reporting.

The paper provides new insights into public sector sustainability reporting and presents reasons for its decline. In addition, the analysis illustrates the applicability of Abrahamson's typology of innovation diffusion to the study of social and environmental reporting practices.

The aim of this chapter is to determine the need for water management and accounting.

This chapter first gives an overview of water-related business risks and exposes the need for sound corporate water management and accounting; it then critically examines water-related issues from an accountability perspective. Furthermore, it gives an overview of Australian Standardised Water Accounting (SWA) and General Purpose Water Accounting (GPWA) as possible practices to strengthen water disclosure.

The present study confirms the need for, and the importance of, transparent, high-quality, credible and comparable water disclosure. Water is considered a public good and involves a public interest and, consequently, public responsibility for its usage, management and protection. Following this line of reasoning, the chapter draws attention to the need for accountability to be ‘public’ or at least shared between crucial stakeholders (government – at national and international levels, water industries, communities, environmentalists, NGOs, etc.).

Company efforts are commonly focused on internal and self-referred operations. The different and conflicting uses that may be made of water, and the fact that water is geographically and temporally sensitive, necessitate a search for more flexible and more extended forms of accountability. An implication of these findings is the need and opportunity to switch focus from a single/private perspective to a more general/public one, with benefits for all the stakeholders.

This research enhances our understanding of water management and accounting and may serve as a sound base for future studies on this challenging topic.