The articles in this virtual issue will be free to access from 1–31 May, 2021.
The world has entered the sixth period of mass extinction driven, in large part, by irresponsible human behaviour. Creating awareness of the need to prevent habitat destruction and the loss of species cannot be left the scientific community alone. Accountants can and must play a key role in changing business mindsets if an environmental disaster is averted.
Three special issues in Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal make a case for and explore the efficacy of emerging forms of accounting and reporting to mitigate, at least in part, the effects of climate change, biological degradation and mass extinction. These include biodiversity reporting (Jones and Solomon, 2013), ecological accounting (Russell et al., 2017) and extinction accounting (Atkins and Maroun, 2018). The collection of papers below have been selected to iterate the calls by the three AAAJ special issues for additional research on how accounting, auditing and mechanisms of accountability can be used to promote a genuine commitment to long-term environmental responsibility.
The selection is, by no means, a complete list of the environmental accounting research. AAAJ papers selected because of their focus on the technical features of accounting, which can be mobilised to support sustainable development. The intention is not to marginalise the prior research advancing theoretical and empirical contributions but to engage with the practitioner community and encourage more normative research offering practical recommendations for operationalising new accounting and accountability methods.
Selection of papers
- Atkins, J. and Maroun, W. (2018), "Integrated extinction accounting and accountability: building an ark", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 750-786. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-06-2017-2957
- Atkins, J. and Maroun, W. (2020), "The Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White: exploring the roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 33 No. 8, pp. 1835-1870. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-03-2016-2450
- Cuckston, T. (2018), "Making extinction calculable", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 849-874. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-10-2015-2264
- Cuckston, T. (2019), "Seeking an ecologically defensible calculation of net loss/gain of biodiversity", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 1358-1383. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-01-2018-3339
- Jones, M., Solomon, J., Freeman, M. and Groom, B. (2013), "Biodiversity valuation and the discount rate problem", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 715-745. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-02-2013-1226
- Khan, T. (2014), "Kalimantan's biodiversity: developing accounting models to prevent its economic destruction", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 150-182. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-07-2013-1392
- Milne, M., Grubnic, S., Ascui, F. and Lovell, H. (2011), "As frames collide: making sense of carbon accounting", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 978-999. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513571111184724
- Russell, S., Milne, M.J. and Dey, C. (2017), "Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts: Critical reflections on environmental accounting and propositions for ecologically informed accounting", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 30 No. 7, pp. 1426-1458. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-07-2017-3010
- Sullivan, S. and Hannis, M. (2017), ""Mathematics maybe, but not money"", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 30 No. 7, pp. 1459-1480. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-06-2017-2963
- Vesty, G., Telgenkamp, A. and Roscoe, P. (2015), "Creating numbers: carbon and capital investment", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 302-324. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-10-2013-1507