...'Club of Economics in Miskolc' TMP Vol. 8., Nr. 2., pp. 23-30. 2012. Green Accounting for Corporate Sustainability BETTINA HÓDI HERNÁDI ASSISTANT LECTURER e-mail: vgtbetti@uni-miskolc.hu SUMMARY Today, corporate sustainability is one of the greatest challenges facing companies. Therefore, this study aims to show how accounting, as the language of business and the source of information, can meet the criteria of sustainability. This article starts out by analysing the different approaches to corporate sustainability, then it proposes the reinterpretation of the most important accounting principle, the ‘going concern’ principle. In the following section it outlines the characteristics of accounting from the point of view of sustainability. Finally, it proposes ways of transforming green accounting, both in name and content, into sustainability accounting. Keywords: corporate sustainability; the ‘going concern’ principle; green accounting (environmental accounting); sustainability accounting Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) code: M41 INTRODUCTION According to the Brundtland Commission (1987, p. 43), “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the similar needs of future generations. The concept interprets sustainable economic, ecological and social development as a unity.” Today’s companies must also comply with the challenges stemming from this approach, and therefore they must also implement economic,...
Words: 6871 - Pages: 28
...Strategy and the Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2009) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bse.657 Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting on the Internet J. Emil Morhardt* Roberts Environmental Center, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA ABSTRACT All material related to environmental and social performance on the corporate internet sites of 454 Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 1000 companies in 25 industrial sectors was analyzed using the Pacific Sustainability Index. Maximum scores for individual sectors were 20–75 percent of the total possible, highest in the largest and most environmentally sensitive sectors and ranging generally linearly, as shown by plotting score versus rank, down to nearly zero in every sector. None of the variation in score is explained by corporate revenue in the Asian and European firms in this sample (revenues greater than about $9 billion), but there is a very weak correlation between score and revenue for American firms of this size, and a stronger one when Fortune 1000 companies (all American) with revenues smaller than this are included, suggesting that, as corporate size reaches a certain threshold, sustainability reporting becomes independent of it. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 18 November 2008; revised 26 April 2009; accepted 1 June 2009 Keywords: corporate environmental reporting; corporate environmental policy; corporate social reporting;...
Words: 10961 - Pages: 44
...HARD BUT MANDATORY TO BE IN BATTLE –CORPORATE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Dr PP Singh-Director, C.T Group of Institutions Maqsudan Campus Jalandhar. Arora Gaurav Singh-Management Faculty, Lovely Professional University Jalandhar. Rohit Kapoor-MBA-International Buisness,Lovely Professional University Jlandhar. Abstract In the current Business environment we often come across some facts where corporate enterprises form strategy to meet the second biggest challenge after transforming its business into corporate. The mainstream of the literature on corporate sustainability follows the win–win paradigm, according to which economic, environmental and social sustainability aspects can be achieved simultaneously. Where making profit is one primary objective and challenge for any corporate on the other front dynamism in the business environment lays corporate to plan down certain strategies to sustain in the battle irrespective of the crest and troughs in the business. This paper examines various strategies adopted by the companies to sustain ie- Corporate and social responsibility, stake holders management relations, environment management or it also the cost cutting part to be on the kitty to maintain the balance of revenues. The paper also highlights the manipulation of figures by the companies to be the arena. Introduction Corporate sustainable development means a formulation of Business strategy that puts the...
Words: 2227 - Pages: 9
...INTRODUCTION Among all stakeholders, recognition is focusing increasingly on the need for sustainable corporate practices, given pressing economic, social, and environmental problems on a global scale. By conducting business in ways that promote ecological health and human welfare, corporations increase value over the long term for consumers, shareholders and others for both current and future generations. Business students need to be familiar with, and committed to, principles and practices of corporate sustainability. This short essay outlines several sources in the literature on corporate sustainability provided by the following organizations: International Organization for Standardization (ISO); Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC); Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; International Federation of Accountants (IFAC); Ernst & Young; and Association of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). An annotated bibliography follows the discussion, highlighting articles of interest in corporate sustainability literature. Finally, figures provided in an appendix illustrate key concepts from the discussion. ISO 26000:2010 International Organization for Standardization * Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. A global consortium of experts in multiple aspects of quality-related standardization representing industry, nonprofits, government, healthcare, and academia. * Formulated by technical committees, standards are released after extensive review and a minimum 75%...
Words: 3341 - Pages: 14
...ACCA mAlAysiA sustAinAbility reporting AWArDs (masrA) 2011 2 contents Introduction The age of integration: a new dawn for corporate reporting Panel of judges Entrants Shortlisted reports ACCA MaSRA 2011 winners Judges’ feedback Supporting organisations About ACCA 4 6 11 12 14 17 25 28 31 ACKnoWleDgement ACCA would like to thank and acknowledge the contribution and support of the distinguished panel of judges, AccountAbility, Bursa Malaysia Berhad, CorporateRegister.com, The Department of Environment (DOE), The Edge Business Weekly, The Edge Financial Daily and last but not least all participating companies in the Awards. We believe that the participating companies deserve recognition for leading the way to identify and communicate their environmental and social performance. Companies such as these are contributing towards the advancement of sustainable development and performance. 3 introduction Welcome to the ACCA report of the Judges for the malaysia sustainability reporting Awards (masrA) 2011. ACCA and our supporting partners for the masrA 2011 would like to thank all the companies that participated this year. Since the last ACCA MaSRA, the world of corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting has been undergoing tremendous change. This is reflected in the various developments on the international and local front. Nationally, Bursa Malaysia remains a key driver of sustainability reporting for corporate Malaysia. Following...
Words: 8082 - Pages: 33
...Greenheart and the Quest for Corporate Environmental Sustainability Name University Professor Course April 12, 2012 Abstract Greenheart has greatly reduced in promoting environmental sustainability after a change of ownership and some financial difficulties brought by the environment. With this, its leader should remember that the greatest promoter of power is people. By increasing the number of internal stakeholders and supporting their coordinators, the company can again revive their lost power and ambiance and bring back again the gains and the resources that were once lost. Case Study: Greenheart and the Quest for Corporate Environmental Sustainability Introduction Greenheart is a multinational food producer stated in Netherlands since 1900s. It has long sought environmental sustainability through ample means of reducing its environmental impact. However, with the change of ownership and some economic difficulties, environmental issues became merely of secondary importance, taking them more in a structured, integrative, and “realist” basis. The new owner had a singular approach and would rather focus more on the marketing issues, with some shifts in corporate values and corporate mission statement. After 2002, the vision statement no longer mentioned the environment but rather the initiative to be a world leader in the food industry by creating quality products for long-term sustainability. By this, Greenheart...
Words: 2560 - Pages: 11
................................................................................................... 3 3. Shareholder ........................................................................................................................... 4 Corporate Social Responsibility Report of Volkswagen .................................................................... 6 General Problem with Corporate Social Responsibility Report ........................................................ 8 Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility ................................................................................ 10 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 11 Appendix .............................................................................................................................................. 12 Bibligiography...................................................................................................................................... 13 2 Introduction One of the world biggest car makers - Volkswagen was the industry Group Leader in the Automobile & Components industry group in S & P Dow Jones Sustainability...
Words: 3646 - Pages: 15
...currently indicates the global challenges that industries are facing and more companies are pressured to embrace sustainability as business conditions change. However, only recently corporations started integrating sustainability as the part of their business strategy as they came to recognize that it is an essential part in growing and establishing themselves as the leader in the competing environment. A well-executed sustainability strategy can enhance the company’s value and reinforce competitive advantage in the market while protecting the capital base. The balance of power has shifted between corporations and it is important to balance economic prosperity along with environmental and social dimensions. Sustainable business strategy represents a marked shift in traditional business practices and companies who do not adapt to the changes in these practices in order to achieve sustainable profitability will be more likely to face the brand value decline or even extinction in the future. For instance, the change represents the need to understand how all three dimensions affect each other and companies ought to consciously create new consumer preferences. However, a lot of companies still are missing guidelines to implementing a marketing strategy of sustainability as an essential part, which is at the core of ensuring organizational, social, economic and environment growth while managing overconsumption issues (White, 2011). Current researches tend to focus on developing a more...
Words: 3789 - Pages: 16
...DEVELOPMENT THROUGH CSR ____________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Sustainable development is a vision and a way of thinking and acting so that we can secure the resources and environment for our future generation. It will not be brought through policies only - it must be taken up by society as a principle guiding the many choices each citizen makes every day, as well as the big political and economic decisions that affect many. It is clear that environmental degradation tends to impose the largest costs on those generations that are yet to be born. We can only improve sustainable development when it will put an emphasis on involving citizens and stakeholders. Ultimately, the vision will become reality only if everybody contributes to a world where economic freedom, social justice and environmental protection go hand in hand, making our own and future generations better off than now.1 Sustainability has emerged as a challenge before entire civilization. The challenge before us is to reduce disparity through capacity building and providing poor and dispossessed access to the knowledge and resources needed for meaningful life. National Development through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability ensures the well-being of individual by integrating business practices in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner that is transparent and ethical. CSR is about not only complying...
Words: 2383 - Pages: 10
...The purpose of this global sustainability report FY2014 is to evaluate whether the company provides clear information on their overall performances across the triple bottom line. The stakeholders and shareholders are interested to know how the company shapes and how they resolve social issues and environmental issues. This helps to raise corporate transparency which allow balanced and clear assessment of the company’s performance by stakeholders to facilitate corporate accountability. It also incorporates sustainability with useful data for identifying emerging issue and develops appropriate responses that helps protect corporate reputation and improve shareholder value. In this way, it helps a company to articulates its sustainability vision and strategy, and ensure that they are in line with company goals. Because the report includes the sustainability goals that the company wants to achieve, writing in the report ensure that the goals are clear and that they match with the company’s overall mission and vision. CapitaLand Limited has adopted GRI Global 4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines in their sixth Sustainability Report and is an audited by an independent third party, Ere-S Pte. Ltd. specializing in business sustainability and provide independence assurance for this report. The report is based on GRI Global 4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, in accordance with the Core level requirements outlined in the G4’s reporting standards. This Report has successfully...
Words: 2029 - Pages: 9
...Sustainability reporting is a set of reports to measure and disclosing for fulfil the interest of internal and external stakeholders such as employees, customers, local communities and more to provide insight into corporate sustainability performance through the development of sustainability (Sustainability Reporting Guidelines 2011, 3). It linked to describe reporting on environmental, economic and social impacts in business terms often called the triple bottom line approach. Triple bottom line approach using qualitative and quantitative for the measurement of company performance as well as to attain the goal of sustainable development (Brueckner 2010, 94). Sustainability reporting also called non-financial reporting which illustrate key elements corporate performance such as social reporting, triple bottom line reporting and more (Choudhuri and Chakraborty 2009). Within the sustainability reporting, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) which include general and sector specific content that has been agreed by variety of stakeholders around the world to generally applicable for reporting corporate sustainability performance (Sustainability Reporting Guidelines 2011, 3). Organization with sustainability will drive the increases of profit. Hence, product and services supply in environmentally friendly and energy-efficient because of the rising of demand by the society. A well corporate sustainability performance may influence the perception of society toward the company (Green...
Words: 921 - Pages: 4
...Addressing the Sustainability Challenge and its Effect on Managers of Modern Organizations Addressing the Sustainability Challenge Modern society is affected daily by technological advances, the fluidity of the economic system, the legitimacy of products, and the constant change in the environment. Likewise, modern organizations face the same challenges. As Daft (2012) mentions, all organizations exist for a purpose. The challenge for managers is to be able to understand these challenges as well as be able to project how they will affect their organization. The manager then must be able to apply organizational changes that will exploit these challenges in order to promote growth. Otherwise, the existing purpose of the organization would deteriorate. This issue is known as organizational sustainability; just as society must adapt to the constant change of the environment, organizations must adapt to constant change in order to maintain their purpose. Further, corporate sustainability is being able to identify the social, environmental, and economic impact that leaders must address for the success of their organization. It is critical for managers to consider sustainability because in order to keep an organization’s product or service relevant to the market, they must be able to adapt their strategy to the constant change of environment. Organizational sustainability encompasses the personnel that make up the organization, the products and services that the organization...
Words: 1126 - Pages: 5
...Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction 2 Defining Sustainability 2 What Sustainability means to Woolworths 3 Corporate Stakeholders of Woolworths 3 Woolworths Drive for Change 5 Integrated Reporting 6 Why Integrated Reporting? 6 Woolworths Integrated Reporting 7 The Future of Integrated Reporting 7 Conclusion 8 Word Count: 1995 Executive Summary This report examines the new world of sustainability reporting, and the complex web of stakeholders. It focuses particularly on the demands for new kinds of transparency which serve the interests of the environment and society. In this report, Woolworths, one of our major competitors has been analyzed in order to understand how they have evolved the concept of sustainability and how they have applied it to their organizational level. As a result, Woolworths has placed our organization at a competitive disadvantage. The report finds Woolworths future prospects as a positive template in managing our organization. Their engagement on sustainability issues with their stakeholders, customers, suppliers, investors and employees through their Sustainability Strategy have placed them in the lead. This report provides an opportunity on sustainability and integrated reporting for our organization. Introduction Over the years there has been an increase in pressure and concern over the impact that organizations have had on the environment and the society. As a result, organizations are being challenged...
Words: 2140 - Pages: 9
...Customer Relationship and Corporate Governance in Sustainability of Business Vinod Krishna U. Makkimane Sr.Faculty Institute of Business Management & Technology Banashankari 3rd Stage, Bengaluru. Sustainability is a dynamic concept born out of the environmental debate of the last quarter century. There is growing concern nationally and internationally about biodiversity and protection of plants and animals and community based activity. It is important to view sustainable efforts from global perspective that addresses socio-economic and environmental issues. Sustainable Development as a norm has been accepted in the literature ever since the publication of the Brundtland Commission report in 1987.The Brundtland Commission defined Sustainable Development as that which "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs". A primary goal of sustainable development is to achieve a reasonable and equitably distributed level of economic well being that can be perpetuated continually for many human generations. It also implies using renewable natural resources in a manner that does not eliminate or degrade them, or otherwise diminish their usefulness for future generations. Sustainable development also requires depleting non-renewable energy resources at a slow enough rate so as to ensure the high probability of an orderly society transition to renewable energy sources. Mahatma Gandhi has observed long back that...
Words: 2633 - Pages: 11
...Sustainability Media Journal 111857253 Xuxu Miao The concept of sustainable development spread first into the mainstream in the 1980s. These years, driven by internal and external factors, many corporations are beginning to integrate sustainability into their business models to gain competitive advantage in today’s market. This essay will introduce what forces the corporation to become sustainable and what corporation can do to achieve sustainability while listing an example of an ideal corporation in this term. Both of the external and internal drivers accelerate transformation towards sustainability for corporation. The worsening environment in China is prominent power for moving to sustainability currently. The push to clean up the country's air, land and water has forced company to transform its developing model. Though China has become the world's second- largest economy, it is still in the lower part of the world's industry chain and has a lot of industries with excessive energy consumption and high pollution. Due to social and economic factors, Hebei provincial government in January this year has banned approvals of new steel, cement, glass and nonferrous metal plants-these industries are both environment killers and economic drivers in Hebin (Jin Haixing 2014). It can be seen that these industries have to change their way of operation, which can add the most value with the least use of resources and pollution. Meanwhile, increasing public awareness of sustainability...
Words: 1971 - Pages: 8
