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Incorporating Sustainability in Management Education pp 33–54Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Sustainability Accounting and Education: Conflicts and Possibilities

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Abstract

Accounting education has a long history of successfully resisting ideas and innovations which may fundamentally challenge taken-for-granted assumptions. Whilst it is just about possible to adopt an understanding of sustainability which does not challenge fundamental assumptions about economy, capitalism and accounting, it is arguably the duty of education to encourage the exploration of such challenges. This chapter briefly reviews these contentions and then, having offered a review of approaches to sustainability accounting, suggests how educators might approach the question of how disruptive a sustainability accounting education might be. The underlying theme of the chapter is that if the educator and the student are not feeling uncomfortable and fundamentally challenged, then we are probably not looking at either sustainability or education.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Shallow or surface learning emphasises memory, regurgitation and passivity; deep learning emphasises understanding, engagement and critical analysis (Gray et al. 1994).

  2. 2.

    “Sustainababble” was a colourful and illustrative term coined by Engelman (2013) to capture the range of chatter around what purported to be sustainability which, largely, failed to ever address sustainability itself.

  3. 3.

    Which is probably the correct answer (Gray 1992, 2010).

  4. 4.

    Gray et al. (2001) report an interview with an academic who stated, “I am aware of sustainability but it is scary…”.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK

    Rob Gray

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  1. Rob Gray
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Correspondence to Rob Gray .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Edinburgh Business School, Edinburgh, UK

    Kenneth Amaeshi

  2. Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham, UK

    Judy N. Muthuri

  3. Lagos Business School, Lagos, Nigeria

    Chris Ogbechie

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Gray, R. (2019). Sustainability Accounting and Education: Conflicts and Possibilities. In: Amaeshi, K., Muthuri, J., Ogbechie, C. (eds) Incorporating Sustainability in Management Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98125-3_3

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