"Good" news from nowhere: imagining utopian sustainable accounting

TY - JOUR

T1 - "Good" news from nowhere

T2 - imagining utopian sustainable accounting

AU - Atkins, Jill

AU - Atkins, Barry Colin

AU - Thomson, Ian

AU - Maroun, Warren

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to attempt to provide a ray of hope, in the form of a Morris-style utopian dream of a sustainable world, as a basis for new forms of accounting and accountability in contemporary society.Design/methodology/approach– The method is four-fold, weaving together an auto-ethnographic approach, a contextual dialogue between accounting academics and lobbyists, a Morris-inspired utopian metaphor and a stakeholder accountability event in the form of oral disclosures written as a song cycle.Findings– Current efforts at integrated reporting are unlikely to change how large companies do business in order to address the risk of climate change in the short term. If the UN reports on climate change are correct, the authors need to take immediate action. The authors argue that, instead of waiting for climatic disaster to lead to a paradigm shift in corporate practice, “monetisation” of the costs of climate change is one way to encourage integrated thinking and sustainable business models. This relies on existing finance and accounting discourse to create a new “field of environmental visibility” which engenders environmental awareness on the part of the world’s companies and policy makers.Practical implications– This utopian image may not appear a practicable, realistic solution to current problems but represents a starting point for optimism. It provides inspiration for policy makers to develop better forms of sustainability reporting, more suitable to the accelerating rates of climatic change.Originality/value– To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to develop Morris’s News From Nowhere as a basis for building new forms of accounting and accountability.

AB - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to attempt to provide a ray of hope, in the form of a Morris-style utopian dream of a sustainable world, as a basis for new forms of accounting and accountability in contemporary society.Design/methodology/approach– The method is four-fold, weaving together an auto-ethnographic approach, a contextual dialogue between accounting academics and lobbyists, a Morris-inspired utopian metaphor and a stakeholder accountability event in the form of oral disclosures written as a song cycle.Findings– Current efforts at integrated reporting are unlikely to change how large companies do business in order to address the risk of climate change in the short term. If the UN reports on climate change are correct, the authors need to take immediate action. The authors argue that, instead of waiting for climatic disaster to lead to a paradigm shift in corporate practice, “monetisation” of the costs of climate change is one way to encourage integrated thinking and sustainable business models. This relies on existing finance and accounting discourse to create a new “field of environmental visibility” which engenders environmental awareness on the part of the world’s companies and policy makers.Practical implications– This utopian image may not appear a practicable, realistic solution to current problems but represents a starting point for optimism. It provides inspiration for policy makers to develop better forms of sustainability reporting, more suitable to the accelerating rates of climatic change.Originality/value– To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to develop Morris’s News From Nowhere as a basis for building new forms of accounting and accountability.

KW - Engagement

KW - Integrated reporting

KW - Morris

KW - Stakeholder

KW - Sustainability

KW - Utopia

KW - Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)

KW - Accounting

U2 - 10.1108/AAAJ-09-2013-1485

DO - 10.1108/AAAJ-09-2013-1485

M3 - Article

VL - 28

SP - 651

EP - 670

JO - Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal

JF - Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal

SN - 0951-3574

IS - 5

ER -