Accounting Theory: Critical Analysis of CSR and Sustainability

This report provides a critical review of several research papers related to accounting theory, focusing on environmental footprint assessment, corporate accountability in disasters like the Samarco sludge incident, corporate governance and environmental reporting, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It examines the role of CSR, its dialogue with stakeholders, and environmental impacts in developing countries. The report uses various theories to analyze these papers, highlighting the importance of sustainable development and the need for corporations to address social and environmental issues. Furthermore, it discusses sustainable development in the context of a selected company, employing theories different from those used in the initial paper reviews, emphasizing the integration of economic development with environmental protection for future generations. Desklib offers this document to aid students in their studies.

ACCOUNTING
THEORY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
TASK...............................................................................................................................................4
Part A: Critical review of the following papers using at least three theories:.................................4
Assessing the environmental footprint:..................................................................................4
Corporate accountability in the Samarco Sludge Disaster:....................................................5
Corporate Governance and Environmental Reporting:..........................................................6
Corporate Social Responsibility:............................................................................................7
Corporate Social Responsibility and Dialogue with others:...................................................7
Environmental incidence in Developing Countries:...............................................................8
Part B: Critical Discussion on the sustainable development of the company that has been selected
using theories other than those used in Part A:................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
In this report critical discussion has been carried out relating to different papers and these
papers are being evaluated and analysed accordingly. The papers those are being analysed named
as assessing the environment footprint, corporate accountability in the samarco sludge disaster,
corporate governance and environmental reporting, corporate social responsibility, corporate
social responsibility and dialogue with others and environmental incidence in developing
countries are being consider. The main purpose of this statement is to carry out detailed analysis
of the report that has been discussed under and bring out the crux of the article along with
various theories that are mentioned under that article. At the end of this statement discussion has
been carried out in regards to sustainable development relating to an organisation with different
theories that are not being used in the first case. Sustainable development is an overarching
paradigm of the United Nations. This concept has been introduced in 1987 brunt land
commission report as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It can further be said that research papers
are helpful to understand what is being done in a certain industry it helps to conclude which
method is being adapted and used in a effective and efficient manner. It is further advised that the
company must understand how to use it in a manner which would be able to serve the purpose in
best possible manner and in best possible ways as well. It states the ways which help it to grow
and function in an environment which is competitive but helps to maintain sustainability and
stability as well. It would also help to carry out a critical review from the papers given and the
essence of theories as well (Aghbashlo, Tabatabaei, Rahnama, and Rosen, 2020).

TASK
Part A: Critical review of the following papers using at least three theories:
Assessing the environmental footprint:
The research paper given helps to examine the current sustainability of information which is
available and for companies which can be accessed for operational functions. The paper also
helps to deal in future prospective and work according to the maintenance of production related
functions. Opportunities existing in the companies in relation to improve their reporting
standards by specifying the type of energy being used at every stage of mining, mineral
processing and metal production related operations. Releasing more detailed energy data
pertaining towards the consumption by one respective person on site processes is also mandatory
for gaining a more related understanding of the business. An environmental footprint also
referred as ecological footprint which would take into account the entire demand and supply of
goods and services for the planet (Agyenim-Boateng and Oduro-Boateng, 2019). By doing so, it
is further assumed that the entire population would be following a certain lifestyle which is
characterised by a well-known individual or a group of individuals. It is a simple metric which is
also uniquely comprehensive and which won't only be measuring the demand of humanity on our
ecosystem planet but it is also the key towards understanding the inter related pressure of climate
alteration on the natural based ecosystem on which humanity would be depending. There are four
types of footprints such as economic, environmental, social and combined as well. The simplest
way for defining ecological footprint would be for calling it the impact and effect on human
related activities and operations.
Corporate accountability in the Samarco Sludge Disaster:
As per research paper given it can be understood that the term states and refers to a publicly
traded performance in non-financial areas such as sustainability and social responsibilities. The
paper covered the Samarco chemical sludge which took place in November 2015 in Brazil as
case study for accountability of businesses in disasters. This can be explained as the worst
disaster ever which affected the territory on a larger scale. The paper initially contextualises the
disaster and then it identifies some key judicial proceedings which take place in Brazil against
the organisations involved. At last, it was considered possible international mechanisms which
could be held fruitful in addressing situations such as the Samarco chemical sludge. It has further

been recommended that the OECD Guidelines would offer a better opportunity for putting
pressure on government authorities for seeking accountability of businesses involved. In the case
of Brazil, the government is already undertaking measures but then further options and
alternatives can be explored, by putting pressure against UK and Australia. One expectation
which would be to file a complaint before the UK country is considered by few as the best
operating activity which provide insight as well (Androniceanu and Strakova, 2021). In case of
Brazil, the government authorities are already undertaking such measures but in relation many
alternatives can be explored as well. It is also said that Guideline can be used as normative
standard which is also helpful in disasters for linking to businesses in operations abroad. They
would also contribute in enhancing the observing quality especially human rights and
environmental standard by the enterprises which are located over the globe. It is also expected
that with the help of Guidelines and engaging with the NCP procedures MNC shall increasingly
avoid the adverse effects and impacts of their activities of their business partners as well.
Corporate Governance and Environmental Reporting:
As per the assessment of report it can be observed that there is a variable pattern observed after
the disclosure over the period of 1983 to 1997. The trend is to provide higher levels of social and
environmental data in recent upcoming years, and the disposition for providing main positive
data. Such results are in line with the findings of previous research, as in the findings of
predominance of disclosure on the theme of economic environment and human resources.
Marked increases in social disclosure taken place from 1989 and again from year 1996. The
empirical testing which can be supported by performing the first hypothesis. The second
hypothesis proposing that management would be releasing positive data in response to
unfavourable media attention was also being confirmed. Support for both hypotheses has also
been found for many issues within various disclosure-based themes (Carnegie, McBride, Napier,
and Parker, 2020). Generally speaking, and stating those sub issues which have attracted the
largest and highest amount of annual report related disclosure. Such results then would be
lending support to legitimation motives for a company's social disclosure and also support the
carried-out conclusions as well. The paper also provided evidences which manager disclose
information for legitimising their companies place within society. This paper would also provide
evidence which are consistence and constant with a view that higher media attention would
stimulating greater corporate disclosures. More specifically when there is perceived to be adverse

in opinion and eyes of public, reporting thorough such media with the help of annual reports are
being used in an endeavour for bringing public opinion back in the support of organisation.
Companies which simply react towards community concerns are not truly embracing a notion
towards the accountability. It can be explained as lack of evidence which would show and reflect
whether corporate disclosures actually would be impacting or shaping the public perceptions.
The evidence in the paper and elsewhere recommends that higher levels of disclosure would take
place when community concerns are raised or alternatively until such time where specific
regulation is introduced for eliminating the management disclosure discretion.
Corporate Social Responsibility:
Under the research paper the discussion has been carried out relating to the enquiry made by the
government of the Australia relating to corporate social responsibility. The main focus is to
ensure that whether CSR is being properly regulated or not as determined by the market forces.
The main investigation in this subject matter is to ensure that whether there is a need to amend
corporation act 2001 or not. As the older Act does not have the specific provision in relation to
corporate social responsibility and it requires amend so as to requires the manager to incorporate
the same in the organisation (Healy, Cleary, and Walsh, 2018). This research paper has been
provided the basis of understanding of the Australian business communities perspective about the
corporate social responsibility. There has been opposition relating to legislative requirement and
associated reporting and overwhelming support the voluntary approach to social corporate
responsibility. The representatives of the Australian business sector said that the need of the
business is to maximise the shareholder’s wealth and achieving this target, corporate social
responsibility will also be addressed. It has been observed that mana business leaders have
argued that they’re not has been much alteration since 1960. The ultimate view of the corporate
maximising the shareholder’s wealth and it covers all the business activities as well and there is
no requirement of the business to carry out non-financial measurements pertaining to social and
environmental performance. Researcher is of the view that corporate social responsibility related
information provides biased perspective relating to performance of the organisation. According
to the article the free good attributes of the information also contributes to lower level of
disclosure then might be socially optimal. The results of the research show that business
community is in favour of anti-regular approach whereby corporation should be left with the
flexibility to determine their social responsibility and associated accountability and enlightened

the self-interest should be retained as the guiding mechanism for social responsibility initiatives.
It is also necessary for the business to move towards sustainable development and to address
many social and environmental issues confronting communities worldwide.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Dialogue with others:
From the research paper it can be said that it explains the corporate dialogue with vulnerable
others employing a different discourse assessment approach. The centrality of company would
broadly be manifesting in hegemonic emphases, in both business and academic literature it
further explains how a competitive advantage can be achieved such as protecting brand and other
assets, main control over the parameters of defusing critique, parameters of responsibilities and
avoiding regulation. Privileging the interest related to business has been convincingly critiqued
as result at its best and in minimum productive CSR and the underpin rationale which
corporation would do better in order to help them for performing well in fundamental terms
(Krylov, 2019).
Environmental incidence in Developing Countries:
The research paper helps to understand corporate media with the help of annual reports, press
releases and a standalone report as well. It would further help to have a better understanding and
find what would be the environmental effect and impact on local communities as well. It can be
indicated that for adopting the attitude of looking after their own backyard rather than attempting
to be accountable for the local based community who were ultimately affected by blowout in
Bangladesh (Lozano and Mancilla-Rendón, 2020).
Part B: Critical Discussion on the sustainable development of the company
that has been selected using theories other than those used in Part A:
Sustainable improvement may be described as a technique to the monetary improvement of a
rustic without compromising with the exceptional of the surroundings for destiny generations. In
the call of monetary improvement, the charge of environmental harm is paid withinside the shape
of land degradation, soil erosion, air and water pollutants, deforestation, etc. This harm may also
surpass the benefits of getting greater exceptional output of products and services.
Sustainable Development Goals:
 To sell the form of improvement that minimises environmental troubles.

 To meet the desires of the present era without compromising with the exceptional of the
surroundings for destiny generations (Mihret, Mirshekary, and Yaftian, 2020.
Achieving Sustainable Development Sustainable improvement may be finished if we observe the
subsequent points: It may be finished via way of means of limiting human activities.
Technological improvement ought to be enter powerful and now no longer enter utilising. The
fee of intake ought to now no longer surpass the fee of salvation. For renewable resources, the
fee of intake ought to now no longer surpass the fee of manufacturing of renewable substitutes.
All sorts of pollutants ought to be minimised. It may be finished via way of means of realistic
use of herbal resources.
Examples of Sustainable Development
 Wind energy
 Solar energy
 Crop rotation
 Sustainable construction
 Efficient water fixtures
 Green space
 Sustainable forestry
Environmental disaster refers to a state of affairs while surroundings fail to carry out its crucial
feature of lifestyles sustenance. The surroundings turn into appropriate as quickly as the
subsequent happens:
Resource extraction stays beneath the fee of aid era.
Generation of waste stays withinside the absorption capability of the surroundings.
Reasons for Environmental Crisis
 Population explosion: The excessive fee of boom of populace adversely influences the
surroundings. It will increase the call for environmental resources; however, their deliver
is limited. This effects in overuse and misuse of resources (Miller and O’Leary, 2019).
 Rise in monetary activity: The upward push in monetary boom effects in prosperous
intake and manufacturing of products and services. It generates wastes which are past the
absorptive capability of the surroundings.
 Rapid industrialisation: Rapid industrialisation has brought about deforestation, and
depletion of herbal resources. It results in infection of water because of the build-up of

growing number of poisonous materials and commercial wastes withinside the water
bodies (Muniraju and Gangadhra, 2018).
 Urbanisation: A massive migration of populace from rural to city regions effects
withinside the rapid boom of slum regions. It results in the extra burden on the present
infrastructural activities.
 Deforestation: Deforestation refers to slicing down of trees, clearing forest, etc. It
adversely influences the surroundings and reasons different troubles.
 Increased use of insecticides, pesticides, and chemical fertilisers: Farmers and employees
go through fitness troubles because of the extended use of toxic insecticides, pesticides,
and chemical fertilisers. The crop generated additionally carries chemical factors in it.
 A popular business for breaking maintainable improvements is the BHP group, which is
locked into mining companies primarily based in Australia. Their products contribute to
overall improvement and many components of life today, and they expect many to play a
fundamental role as the field decarbonizes. They also make sure that there are some
examples while businesses should make difficult choices related to compromises, which
can also lead to different assessments and trouble between several partners. While they
are seeking to benefit and save the help of each of their partners, equally they believe that
the legitimacy of each partner is at odds with the resolve or inclination they will make
(Nelson and Duxbury, 2021). The assembly and use of their products can have
disincentive effects and, surprisingly, the personalities of the way they play and product
may not be sustainable right now as they want to avoid those effects. Businesses are
looking to limit and mitigate these impacts and find ways to address the long-term health
of society and the natural climate. They see their control over maintainability as the focus
of their efforts to create social costs while:
 Putting the fitness and protection in their human beings first.
 Being environmentally responsible.
 Respecting human rights.
 Supporting the groups wherein they operate.
The office believes supportability is the foundation of the artwork they do at BHP. They
conceded that it clearly resulted in better overall execution, and using the guidelines made us

stronger and safer. Their supportability procedures are described through guidelines using their
charter and managed through their requirements (Ross, Shi, and Xie, 2019). These prerequisites
describe the often-negligible necessity of execution they require, and present the dream of adding
and maintaining control structures in their working assets. Across the group, organizations
typically implement measures to measure their supportability through their public five-year
maintainability goals. Achieving these goals and working towards their aspirations is in line with
their responsibilities to the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals (UNSDGs). Also, it improves their maintainability by doing a lot of them. r Five years
ahead of the public maintainability target in fiscal 2022, they are working on a new target. They
have proactively established weather condition emissions targets to reduce functional ozone
hazardous (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 and Scope 2 in their work effect) and include guidance of
no less than 30 cents starting in FY 2020. Take advantage of FY 2030. Their long-term goal is to
achieve web 0 functional emissions under the guidance of Utilization 2050. They select various
supportability structures, preconditions and commitments and measure them against their
necessity (Stout, 2018). Their maintainability details and the content on their website are in line
with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard far-reaching declaration, the International
Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) Sustainability Framework, the Task Force on Climate-
Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) rules and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
(SASB) Metals and Mining Standards. It also fills the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)
newsletter on progress in implementing the ten principles of the UN Global Compact and
contributes to its broader improvement goals. BHP Billiton's board sets out their maintainability
procedures. The Board's Sustainability Committee oversees Health, Safety, Ecology and Local
(HSEC) topics and assists the Board with governance and inspections. There are an increasingly
wide range of supportability prerequisites, which we choose to either intentionally or as part of
their registration. In FY 2021, they did some self-testing with great work on the ICMM mining
principles and associated general execution assumptions. In October 2020, BHP Billiton signed
the Copper Mark Assurance Technical Commitment for its copper production effects (Olympic
Dam, Escondido and Spence) and completed self-tests as part of this dedication. Each year, they
draw attention to the supportability issues that matter most to their efforts and their partners.
They use this assessment to help illustrate their maintainability approach and to elicit specific
manageability implications in their annual report to include the biggest leisure activity issues on

GRI Standard Reporting Principles to their businesses and partners. The materiality assessment
takes into account the perceptions of internal and external partners and the financial, social,
natural and social impacts of their games. They analysed more than 30 texture manageability
issues in their FY21 materiality assessment (Tran, Nguyen & Hoang, 2021).
BHP Billiton is a company which is based on international natural resources which was being
developed in year 2001. One of the world’s biggest mining organisations, it includes and
considers the production of iron, copper, steel, silver, oil, aluminium and gas. The business is
having interest in transportation and engineering. Together with the help of gold and platinum
group-based metals, silver is considered as a precious metal. Silver is being widely dispersed in
nature whereas the total quantity is quite less and small when being compared with other metals.
Majority of the ores which count silver would also contain the necessary metals lead, zinc,
copper or a combination of three, the silver bearing fraction of such ores is being recovered on a
frequent basis as by a product of lead and copper construction. Business enterprises would be
taking three forms partnerships, proprietorship or limited liability organisations. In first form, a
individual would hold the entire operational activity as his personal property, usually being
managing it on a daily basis.

CONCLUSION
These are the practices and policies that are being undertaken by various organisations
intended to have the positive influence around the globe so far. The main objectives of CSR is to
ensure that the organisation should enter into some of the social work other them maximization
of the profits for their shareholders. Some of the examples of CSR could be minimizing
environmental externalities, promoting volunteerism among the employees of the organisation,
donating the funds to various organisation or entities engaged in social practice. The above
statement also deals with various forms of research paper which needs to be studies in the
detailed manner so that conclusion could be drawn accordingly in the deep since. Not only
conclusion has been drawn but also relevant theories used in such paper is also identifies and has
been discussed in the deep manner so that users could get the better understanding of the report.
The report further explains how the sustainability and corporate accountability and corporate
governance as well as environmental reporting could be used for better understanding and having
a clearer idea as what is being done and what could be done as well. It is further advisable for the
company which has carried out the report and research papers to have a thorough and clear
understanding as what is being done and what could be done. It gives a knowledge about various
theories which could be helpful for protecting what could be done and how could be done as
well.