Sustainability Accounting and Reporting: Development, Linkages and Reflection. An Introduction

Companies are key contributors to economic, environmental and social wellbeing. Corporate activities pervade the present and are likely to be critical in the future, so that corporate sustainability is necessary for long-term sustainable development of the economy and society. In this context, sustainability accounting and reporting which serve the collection, analysis and communication of corporate sustainability information become crucial triggers for management towards corporate sustainability. If corporate sustainability is seen as being the result of management attempts to address sustainability challenges, then it makes sense to discuss and define sustainability accounting and reporting on the basis of the challenges embedded in the sustainability triangle and addressed by cornerstone publications. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the link between accounting and reporting and the question of whether reporting is, or should be, driven by accounting, or conversely whether accounting is or should be driven by reporting.