A framework model for assessing sustainability impacts of urban development

Urban man-made assets have impacts not just on those who develop, build and operate them, but on people who may be quite remote from them. For example, the impact of a building on greenhouse gas emissions arising from fossil fuel use, pollution caused by travel to work patterns and employment opportunities provided by urban developments may be far removed from their immediate locality. There is a growing recognition of the need to internalize these external costs and benefits in accountancy frameworks, drawing on experiences in accounting for sustainable development. This desire, however, presents major challenges in identifying, evaluating and allocating the external environmental, social and economic costs and benefits of an urban environment. This paper reports on the development of an Urban Development Sustainability Assessment Model (UD-SAM) which allows decision makers to identify sustainability indicators (economic, environmental and social) and which may lead to more holistic evaluation of the sustainability impact of elements of the urban environment. The UD-SAM builds on a sustainability assessment model (SAM) developed originally in the oil industry. This paper describes how SAM has been tailored for the construction industry and urban sustainability assessment, and how a set of generic sustainable development indicators have been identified and validated by stakeholders.     

An Account of Sustainability: Failure,Success and a Reconceptualization

The concept of sustainable development (SD) has a pre-eminent place in the environmental policy agenda where it is defined as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromizing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (United Nations World Conference Environment and Development, 1987, p. 8). Within the accounting literature, research activity has focused on what SD may mean for business and accounting activity (see, for example, Batley & Tozer, 1993; Canadian Institute Chartered Accountants, 1993; Gray, et al., 1993; Gray, 1994; Rubenstein, 1994; Geno, 1995; Stone, 1995; Gray & Bebbington, 1996; Milne, 1996; and Bebbington & Thomson, 1996). As part of this literature Gray (1992) proposes the construction of an “account of sustainability" utilizing the idea of a sustainable cost calculation (SCC) which attempts to measure the additional costs which would be borne by the organization if the organization’s activities were not to leave the planet worse off at the end of an accounting period. This paper reports on an attempt to construct a SCC for Manaaki Whenua, Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd. The paper explains why such an account was attempted, outlines the SCC, reviews the attempt to perform the calculations and reflects on the tensions which emerged from the case. The case, while being unsuccessful because it failed to produce the numbers expected, was successful in that it highlighted conceptual mis-specifications of the SCC. This paper builds on this insight and attempts to theorize the research process and reconceptualize the SCC in a manner which seeks to avoid the pitfalls of the original SCC.     

Analysing the role of sustainable development indicators in accounting for and constructing a Sustainable Scotland

The main objective of this paper was to analyse how sustainable development indicators impacted upon the integration of sustainable development into the governing of Scotland. A major concern was whether an accounting technology could represent this complex multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary concept. We analysed the relationship between the official sustainable development strategy of the Scottish Executive and the associated indicator set using an analytics of government framework (Dean, M. (1999). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage Publications. Dean, M. (2007). Governing societies. Berkshire: Open University Press). We observed a lack of alignment between these sustainable development indicators and the visions, fields of visibilities, forms of knowledge and techniques of government contained in this strategy. Critical aspects of this strategy were omitted from the indicator set and we argue that these indicators did not to effectively measure progress towards a Sustainable Scotland but that they could calculatively capture and distort the sustainable development governing process. The analytical framework used allowed us to problematise these indicators and contribute to a wider discourse on the composition and nature of sustainable development indicators.     

Accounting for a Sustainable Scotland

Sustainable development indicators (SDI) can define priorities, determine sustainable actions, evaluate policy options and legitimate government interventions. Sustainable development strategies and indicators used in Scotland, however, show a lack of consistency with a potential for distortion of performance. The attributes of a sustainable Scotland are used to construct a model to develop strategies and indicator sets for sustainable development.     

Towards an orientation of higher education in the post Rio + 20 process: How is the game changing?

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the implications of sustainable development for the future orientation of higher education, especially after the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20). A qualitative trend analysis is being used for this purpose, in the context of which three macro trends are combined: (1) higher education that has been developed via five periods; (2) sustainable development that has evolved through three stages; and (3) the nexus between sustainable development and higher education which has strengthened through three phases. The simultaneous analysis of the macro trends regarding their possible interactive effects (through an expert panel discussion) demonstrates that higher education and universities under the influence of sustainable development elements are entering into a new era in which the function of “higher education for sustainable development” could be interpreted as the seeds of a newly emerging mission for universities. In this regard, it is expected that the concept of “sustainable university” is likely to become more common to meet the emerging mission. Consistent with the Rio + 20 outcomes, the authors analyzed the concept of “sustainable university” and identified the fact that it is practically divided into three interrelated and complementary categories, namely social-, environmental-, and economic-oriented university in pursuit of actualizing sustainable development.     

Impact of website characteristics on relationship quality: a comparison of banks financial cooperatives

This study seeks to investigate differences exhibited by bank customers and members of financial cooperatives respecting website characteristics (website design, convenience, information quality, ease of use and security/confidentiality) and their impact on online relationship quality (composed of trust, commitment and satisfaction). An online survey was conducted with 476 banking sector customers (banks and financial cooperatives), followed by a confirmatory factors analysis and multigroup analysis using EQS 6.2 software. Results evidence a significant difference in terms of website design and security/confidentiality. The impact of these variables on relationship quality proves significantly higher in the case of banks. This study submits that web strategies used by banks and financial cooperatives to develop online relationship quality may vary based on the type of organization.     

The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note

Legitimacy theory suggests companies with poorer environmental performance would be expected to provide more extensive off-setting or positive environmental disclosures in their financial reports. However, recent investigations of the performance/disclosure relation [Al-Tuwaijri, S. A., Christensen, T. E., &; Hughes II, K. E. (2004). The relations among environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and economic performance: a simultaneous equations approach. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 29, 447–471; Hughes, S. B., Anderson, A., &; Golden, S. (2001). Corporate environmental disclosures: are they useful in determining environmental performance? Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 20, 217–240; Hughes, S. B., Sander, J. F., &; Reier, J. C. (2000). Do environmental disclosures in US annual reports differ by environmental performance? Advances in Environmental Accounting and Management, 141–161; Patten, D. M. (2002). The relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: a research note. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27, 763–773] report mixed results. In this study, we use size-matched groups based on industry membership (environmentally sensitive versus non-environmentally sensitive) and environmental performance (worse performers versus better performers, based on data from KLD Research and Analytics, Inc.) to test for differences in the use of monetary and non-monetary non-litigation related environmental disclosure. Results indicate that the use of monetary and non-monetary components of the non-litigation related environmental disclosure varies across groups. In general, the findings provide additional support for the argument that companies use disclosure as a legitimizing tool.     

Scenario workshops: A participatory approach to sustainable urban living?

Cities have increasingly become a focus for environmental action, and many governments are in the process of devising strategies for sustainable development in urban areas. However, dissatisfaaction with traditional approaches to environmental policy making has led to the rise of interest in involving the public in the process of plan and policy formulation. This paper provides a brief review of the rationale for increasing public participation in policy making, and focuses on one attempt to do this through the use of scenaario workshops. The experience of the UK town of Preston is used to look at the effectiveness of this approach both in bringing about sustainable urban living, and as a truly participatory approach to policy making.     

Globally scanning for “Megatrends of the Mind”: Potential futures of futures thinking

This paper focuses on emergent signs of evolutionary change in human thinking that run parallel with many of the exponential changes manifesting in the external world. Weak signals are identified from the early 20th century indicating the emergence of new knowledge patterns. These signals have strengthened in the last 40 years. The paper first identifies new ways of thinking within several disciplines such as science, philosophy, religion and education. New knowledge patterns are then identified in discourses that traverse disciplinary boundaries through transdisciplinary approaches such as futures studies and planetary/global studies. The paper then discusses evolution of consciousness, identifying research that theorises new ways of thinking as being related to individual psychological development and/or socio-cultural evolution. Finally, evolutionary concepts are discussed that attempt to meta-cohere the new knowledge patterns via the terms postformal, integral and planetary. Notably, academic research on “futures of thinking,” “evolution of consciousness” and/or “global mindset change” has been, until now, largely ignored by mainstream academic discourse on evolution, consciousness and futures studies.     

Potential model misspecification bias: Formative indicators enhancing theory for accounting researchers

This paper describes why and when formative factors, in combination with reflective measures, can be used in accounting research to better represent complex theoretical constructs. We argue that the exclusive use of reflective factors constrains theory development and may lead to imprecise measurement. We provide a review of 66 published research papers from Accounting, Organization and Society, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, Accounting, Auditing, & Accountability Journal, Behavioral Research in Accounting, International Journal of Accounting, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Management Accounting Research, Abacus, and Journal of Management Accounting Research using Structural Equation Models (SEM) from 1992 to 2008 to illustrate improvement of misspecification bias in leading accounting journals. Our findings suggest that most of the studies modeled constructs that did not include formative indicators.     

Enacting the vision for sustainable development

Utopia, as a concept, is now used with varying intentions, engendering semantic confusion. When substituted with the notion of visioning, it can be also problematic, if sometimes for different reasons. An implicit engagement in visioning is examined in a community-based futures process for creating a strategy for the sustainable management of natural resources in the Mary River catchment, in Queensland, Australia. It is found that visioning, if it can be binding and impelling for common-interest groups, can be just as unrealistically utopian, or as slippery as the scaly creatures it is trying to protect, when applied afresh to a community exploring change from a variety of initial ideals and needs. It may be seen as an emergent property of active learning.     

A journey towards a safe harbour: The rhetorical process of the International Integrated Reporting Council

This paper investigates the rhetoric deployed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) to legitimise itself and Integrated Reporting (<IR>) and establish its ideology. We draw on Aristotle's rhetorical appeals – ethos, logos, and pathos – and the rhetorical theory of diffusion to conduct a rhetorical analysis of the IIRC's initial documents. Our findings demonstrate how the IIRC's rhetorical strategies serve to: authorise and moralise the IIRC's actions through ethos and pathos; contrast certain social interests and privilege a capitalist ideology through logos; and establish and maintain the IIRC's authority in a way that reflects the interests of the financial community and investors, again, through ethos. We demonstrate how the IIRC has strategically used rhetoric to gain support and develop its authority by contrasting and resisting competing ideological pressures. We also show how a capitalist ideology emerged from this struggle as the shaping force behind <IR> at the cost of marginalising wider social interests. Examining the IIRC's rhetorical process contributes to understanding the ideological struggle surrounding <IR> and enriches our empirical understanding of the ideological turn of rhetorical strategies. Our study contributes to theory and practice by advancing knowledge on the rhetorical strategies that shape and establish dominant ideologies in accounting practice.     

The determinants of companies’ levels of integration: Does one size fit all?

This article extends current knowledge in the field of integrated thinking and reporting (ITR) by providing new empirical evidence on the nature and determinants of companies' levels of integration (i.e. ITR levels). Based on legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, we empirically investigate companies' levels of integration and examine the drivers of different ITR levels. Our results suggest that companies' levels of ITR, namely Holistic, Integrated, Conservative, and Minimalist, are related to company characteristics and tend to remain consistent over time exhibiting routine and imitation. Companies with greater size, leverage, bigger board size and meetings, as well as companies operating in sensitive industries and with higher environmental performance are more likely to exhibit a Holistic or Integrated level of integration, while Minimalist and Conservative levels are driven by the same variables in opposite direction. Furthermore, at country level, economic growth, market performance, citizens freedom and lower environmental performance significantly contribute to higher integration. These results could drive companies' choices alongside policymakers’ initiatives, by identifying which levers should be pulled to achieve the desired level of integration, and suggest the need for a tailored approach rather than a one size fits all within the debate on the future developments of ITR.     

The New Narrative: Applying narratology to the shaping of futures outputs

Both scenario development and design practices incorporate elements of storytelling, but this use remains undertheorised. This paper will draw upon literary theory, film theory and science fiction criticism to develop an analytical model of narrative structure and rhetorics which speaks to the concerns of scenario developers and designers when engaged in shaping the final outputs or deliverables of a futures project.After highlighting the differing role of telos in art and futures and defining the metacategory of “narratives of futurity”, this paper then defines the terms “story”, “narrative”, “narrator” and “world” in the literary context. It then shows how those concepts map onto futures practice, before going into detail regarding the variety of narrative strategies available across a range of different forms and media, and the qualitative effects that they can reproduce in audiences. There follows the construction of a 2 × 2 matrix based on the critical concepts of narrative mode and narrative logic, within which narratives of futurity might be usefully catalogued and compared, and from which certain broad conclusions may be reached as regards the relation between choice of medium and rhetorical effect. The implications of this analysis are explored in detail.     

Political geography and stock returns: The value and risk implications of proximity to political power

We show that political geography has a pervasive effect on the cross-section of stock returns. We collect election results over a 40-year period and use a political alignment index (PAI) of each state's leading politicians with the ruling (presidential) party to proxy for local firms’ proximity to political power. Firms whose headquarters are located in high PAI states outperform those located in low PAI states, both in terms of raw returns, and on a risk-adjusted basis. Overall, although we cannot rule out indirect political connectedness advantages as an explanation of the PAI effect, our results are consistent with the notion that proximity to political power has stock return implications because it reflects firms’ exposure to policy risk.     

Democracy,sustainability and dialogic accounting technologies: Taking pluralism seriously

There is wide-ranging recognition of the need for “new accountings” that foster democracy and facilitate more participatory forms of social organization. This is particularly evident in the sustainable development and social and environmental accounting literatures, with calls for more dialogic forms of accounting. However, there has been very little consideration of how “democracy” should be approached; and, in particular, the implications of any particular model of democracy for the kinds of accounting technologies that might be advocated. This paper seeks to contribute to the theoretical development of dialogic accounting and focuses on the sustainability arena for illustrative purposes. It draws on debates between deliberative and agonistic democrats in contemporary political theory to argue the case for an agonistic approach to dialogics; one that respects difference and takes interpretive and ideological conflicts seriously. In recognition of the ways in which power intrudes in social relations so as to deny heterogeneity and privilege certain voices, it seeks to promote a broadly critical pluralist approach. To this end, the paper proposes a set of key principles for dialogic accounting and draws on ecological economist Peter Söderbaum’s work on positional analysis applied to an existing accounting tool – the Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM) – to illustrate how such an approach might be operationalized. The paper also discusses limitations of the dialogic accounting concept and impediments to its implementation.     

Policies and strategies for sustainable development in Bangladesh

The concept of sustainable development, its relevance for Bangladesh, and policies and strategies for promoting it in Bangladesh are discussed. Economic growth, population growth, mobilization of resources, the role of women, devolution and decentralization, equity and protection of the environmental base are treated as key issues, with emphasis given to the effective implementation of strategies for promoting sustainable development.     

Optimal sustainable monetary policy

In recent monetary policy literature, optimal commitment policy and its variant from a timeless perspective have been studied with emphasis on welfare gains from policy commitment. These policies, however, involve a time-consistency problem called a stabilization bias in forward-looking models. We analyze Chari and Kehoe's [1990. Sustainable plans. Journal of Political Economy 98, 783-802] sustainable equilibrium and examine optimal sustainable policy, i.e. a policymaker's strategy in the best sustainable equilibrium. This paper shows that such a policy becomes consistent with the optimal commitment policy in sufficiently later periods. It also shows that whether the optimal sustainable policy can attain the Ramsey equilibrium outcome depends on the magnitude of shocks hitting the model economy. Moreover, the paper finds a sustainable policy that attains higher social welfare than discretionary policy does.     

New development: Managing and accounting for sustainable development across generations in public services—and call for papers

Social and environmental justice across generations is a fundamental attribute of sustainable development. In this article, which is also a call for papers for a future theme in Public Money & Management (PMM), we develop our case for further research on how governments and public service organizations seek to address sustainable development in their decision-making processes. We believe that accounting for social and environmental aspects is an underdeveloped area of research and practice that is worthy of further critical enquiry. We therefore call on researchers and practitioners to submit their research to a themed issue of PMM on managing and accounting for sustainable development in public services.     

Health transitions in a globalising world: towards more disease or sustained health?

In this paper, we argue that the concept of transitions is a useful way to address future changes in the health status of the world due to the processes of globalisation. To that end, we discuss the current forces affecting human health and the health transitions we have seen in the past. Next, we describe developments in the health status of populations according to three potential future ‘ages’: the age of emerging infectious diseases, the age of medical technology and the age of sustained health. Future health transitions are explored along the lines of four development paths (scenario groups), defined along two dimensions (global versus regional dynamics and emphasising economic objectives versus environmental and equity objectives). We conclude that managing the health transition effectively will require a micro- and macro-approach, taking into account the social, cultural and behavioural determinants of health.