Role of Accounting Profession in promoting CSR and Sustainability Practices

Role of Accounting Profession in promoting CSR and Sustainability Practices
Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility

Role of Accounting Profession in promoting CSR and Sustainability Practices
Role of Accounting Profession in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility and
Sustainability Practices
In today’s world corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability have become the
two most significant aspects of a business environment. CSR is recognised as the concept
under which a business organisation takes initiatives to integrate the social as well as
environmental concerns with its basic operations. On the other hand sustainability is the
practice of undertaking business in a way that resources are deployed in the business up to the
limit of business welfare and thereafter conserving such resources for the future generation.
The accounting profession has played an important role to promote the concept of CSR and
sustainability at a broader level. The major contribution of this profession to CSR and
sustainability is that it has a set mechanism for making corporations to keep accountability of
what they do for society and environment while operating their businesses (Epstein, 2018). In
today’s era, the entities are much beyond of merely complying with the traditional financial
accounting rather the provisions are made for the social and environmental accounting.
Different countries have their specific conceptual framework which covers the keys issues
like CSR and sustainability. Particularly in Australia, the biggest professional body of the
country, CPA Australia has discussed about CSR on the cover page of its website with the
major focus on two main concerns of sustainability and triple bottom line. CPA has also
adopted standards in this context such as ISO 14001 and ISO 14031 in order to safeguard the
interest of mass population together with the organisation (CPA Australia, 2019). Also, CPA
frequently publishes various journals, undertakes multiple researches and also holds sessions
to provide training to the accounting professionals in this regards. As a major step CPA
Australia has included sustainability reporting in the scope of financial reporting.

Role of Accounting Profession in promoting CSR and Sustainability Practices
Another accounting profession body i.e. the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia
(ICAA) which is the 2nd largest body in the field of accounting to promote the concept of
sustainability accounting. It has also taken to its website’s front page the discussion of social
and environmental accounting so as to create more awareness among the corporate entities
about their contribution towards social and environmental welfare (Tilt, 2010). ICA Australia
has published number of articles in context of reducing the carbon emission in Australian
entities so as to transform the country into a less carbon producing nation.
The said accounting bodies are consistently working to improve the reporting practices of its
member accountants through the use of Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) and
also the CSR reporting. EMA is also known as green accounting or environmental accounting
as it is meant to account for the consumption of different resources of an entity in context of
environment as well the impact of such resource deployment. Also, a guide related to triple
bottom line (i.e. people planet and profit) reporting has been developed in 2003 to support the
Global Reporting Initiatives in Australia (Albu, Albu, Girbina & Sandu, 2011).
Australia’s conceptual framework for accounting discusses the decision usefulness of the
financial information so that relevant and reliable information could be provided to the
stakeholders of the company (Aras, 2016). The framework also covers the reporting non-
financial information like social and environmental influences of a business. Further, the
company Ernst and Young in Australia has provided services in relation to environmental and
sustainability which ultimately provides the ways to deal with business issues associated with
environment and society (Tilt, 2010). The classic example of adoption of social and
environmental accounting is the case of BHP Billiton which is one of the leading resources
companies in Australia. The company as a part of its reporting practices undertakes
sustainability reporting apart from financial reporting each year so as to make its stakeholders
know about its sustainability and CSR activities. However, as the company is engaged in the