A growing concern over recent decades regarding the negative impacts of economic activity on the natural and social environment is evident in topical articles in important news media. A 2009 Time magazine cover story, for example, illustrates that consumers are increasingly willing to change their behaviour for environmental reasons (Stengel, 2009). Since the 1980s and 90s in particular, there has been an increasing consumer focus on problematic social and ethical issues; concerns regarding environmental degradation, pollution, waste, poverty, depletion of natural resources, human rights, distributional justice, and interand intra-generational equity have increased in prominence. Consequently, there has been a growing demand from society for greater accountability and transparency regarding social and environmental issues. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting has, in response, received attention from a wide range of both for-profit and not-for-profit organisations, including large listed multinationals, small and medium enterprises, and public sector entities. Social and environmental information is reported in a range of media, including annual financial reports, standalone CSR reports, websites, media releases and independent news articles.
Initiatives such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 guidelines and Accountability’s AA1000 standards have sought to extend and standardise the reporting of corporate environmental and social impacts, including those relating to human and indigenous rights. A recent KPMG survey of international CSR reporting has indicated a marked increase in such reporting patterns worldwide (KPMG, 2008)1. New forms of presenting social and environmental information to stakeholders, including developments in integrated reporting, are gaining in prominence. This special issue of Accounting Forum presents papers investigating a range of topics regarding social and environmental accounting and accountability, as they pertain to a broad range of organisations and stakeholders. The subjects explored in these papers span a number of different countries, and include a study of carbon disclosures, CSR reporting in developing countries and in local government entities, and an analysis of the comprehensiveness and reliability of such reporting. The previous five years have seen sustained growth in carbon related disclosures across varied industries, many of which still remain voluntary.
Adopting a form of ‘critical dialogic engagement’ (Bebbington, Brown, Frame, & Thomson, 2007) Jane Andrew and Corinne Cortese provide valuable discourse around voluntary carbon disclosures, through an examination of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the use of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) reporting model within. Andrew and Cortese, drawing from conceptual and empirical sources with specific reference to energy firms, argue that the methodological diversity underpinning carbon disclosures inhibits the comparability and usefulness of the information. The authors’ preliminary findings suggest that it may not be possible to develop an apolitical regulatory environment that is required for the efficient operation of the CDP and GHG, as it is currently observed that heavily vested economic interests are involved in the design and interpretation of emerging carbon reporting practices with an emphasis on business risks and opportunities. In order to build a substantive carbon related accounting practice that will result in enhanced comparability and meaningful information, Andrew and Cortese suggest a need for carbon accounting researchers to critically evaluate the future opportunities and limitations of market-induced disclosure practice. The increased demand for public accountability with regards to the environmental and social impacts of corporate business entities is by no means limited to developed nations. There has been a marked interest in recent years towards CSR reporting by organisations in developing countries (Sumiana, Haslinda, & Lehman, 2007). Evangeline Elijido-Ten contributes to this literature through an exploration of the motivations for voluntary environmental disclosure in Malaysia. Through the use of an experimental research design, Elijido-Ten investigates the type of environmental disclosure strategy preferred