Sustainability Reporting Process - An Approach for Communicating Strategic Issues in Accounting

Financial Accounting

The changing global environment is constantly challenging companies to look beyond their respective financial performance to drive business. Business leaders are increasingly realizing the need to integrate social, economic and environmental issues within the business strategy. In a world of changing expectations, companies must account for the way they impact the communities and environments where they operate. Business sustainability is in fact, one of the most pressing issues. This raises the importance of accurately and transparently accounting for and reporting these activities. Sustainability reporting, of late, has become a mainstream activity among large and global corporations. Although leading standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative have made significant advancements in setting out the types of information that corporations should publicly disclose, mandatory sustainability reports will not work as an effective policy mechanism unless they are placed in a system that can effectively utilize the information and cause corporations to change their policies and practices. Sustainability reporting for accounting measures and reports both economic and non-economic activities of the firm and accountable to stakeholders (both internal and external) for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development. In this paper, an attempt has been made to reflect upon the various dimensions of sustainability reporting process for accounting.

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