Abstract
Sustainability continues to be a concept which is at the forefront of popular discourse as well as of concern to businesses, governments and major international bodies. Often, it is used in ways which have different meanings and implications, so we argue that its use is based on the concepts of stewardship of all resources coupled with the traditional view of the transformational process of business. We further argue that this is problematic in the present global environment when stewardship of resources is becoming paramount. We therefore argue that sustainability is actually based on efficiency in the transformational process and equity in the distribution of effects. This requires international cooperation together with a need for standards in analysing and measuring sustainability, and we discuss the implications.
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Notes
- 1.
Financial reporting is of course premised upon the continuing of the company—the going concern principle.
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VBM = value-based management, a technique claimed to optimise decision-making for performance. See Cooper et al. (2001) for further details.
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Essentially, the only purpose of traditional accounting is to record the effects of actions upon the organisation itself.
- 5.
Conversely, as Ortiz-Martinez (2004) points out in a country such as Spain, then some kind of information about socially responsible corporate behaviour is required to be shown on the corporate website. In this respect, there is not a universal consensus among government organs, at least as far as the EU is concerned.
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Of course, it is possible to argue that such things as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and such bodies as the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) are effectively government endorsed regulations as they are supported by governments around the world and compliance is required by national and global corporations. Although this is a valid claim, it must also be recognised that their enforcement is policed by organisations such as Arthur Andersen and that corporations such as Enron would be deemed to be in compliance, one of the problems causing a lack of faith in both financial markets and corporate behaviour.
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Crowther, D., Seifi, S. (2019). Developing Sustainability Through Collaborative Action. In: Crowther, D., Seifi, S. (eds) The Components of Sustainable Development. Approaches to Global Sustainability, Markets, and Governance. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9209-2_1
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