Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Meaning of environmental sustainability
Accounting influences the environment
Social and economic aspects of sustainability
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Meaning of environmental sustainability
XYZ
[Email address]
Social and environmental sustainability for accountants
Sustainability
The term sustainability refers to development that meets the contemporary needs without compromising the capacity of future generation to meets their own needs. Sustainability basically involves environmental and social matters that impacts the society. Keeping a note of being sustainable of a human action is to covers the overall impact of activities that effects the individual, the economy, the society, the natural and in built environment.
Sometimes it might be referred as CSR i.e. Corporate Social Responsibility but it carries a wider horizon to elaborate this concept having variety of interpretations on it. For business purposes,
…show more content…
These zones of ability fall actually under an accountant’s responsibility. Great quality data that is trusted and appropriately focused on is crucial to sustainable advancement. Sustainability deals with social and environmental impacts not for the capital markets. This is actually impacting each business models not the CSR. Being an accountant doesn’t mean to be expert but knowing the concept of sustainability as well as having knowledge about the environment. It is basically embedded to perform business and applying skills.
Contribution towards Sustainable Development
The concept of sustainability comprises of being operated in a way by captivating full account of an entity’s influence on the globe and its people with future. Business is always needed to be modified on the basis of information available. Information pertains to accountancy can provide feedback over its performance which eventually guide management in decision making process for its future. The concept of sustainable development assist in determining and informing regarding decision makings about business strategies.
Accountants needs to comprehend the concept, to know how social and environmental issues creates an impact towards business process which eventually helps in developing decision making using appropriate information provided. The concept of Social and environmental sustainability needs to be entrenched in such a way that the business operates.
…show more content…
He states that” “Let’s be clear: right from the outset, we’re looking for a market-led adoption [of Integrated Reporting] in Australia, not more regulation,” “What we need from regulators is the ability for companies to do integrated reporting, not the mandating of integrated reporting. This is subtle but important. We’re not about more reporting, we’re about better reporting. It’s terribly important that we don’t get captured by
According to Investopedia.com (2015), corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a corporation’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company’s effects on environmental and social wellbeing. More specifically, CSR involves a business identifying its stakeholder groups and incorporating their needs and values within the strategic planning. Failing to be “responsible” is regarded as a business risk. On the other hand, too responsible is also a risk (Klein, 2012). Thus, effective CSR is important to increase competitive advantage, increase sales, mitigate risks, enhance reputation, and contribute to business results to align the company with its business purpose and values (Ragan, Chase, & Karim, ,2015).
Ecological theory is a theory developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner that states that the “systems” around you are vitally important in human development. Within the theory there are many systems including the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Each system is defined by a different aspect of a person’s surroundings that would affect their development. The systems begin with the aspect that is closest to you, your day-to-day life. The Microsystem includes all of the places, people, and experiences that are found in your daily life. These include school, work, parents. friends, neighbors, and so forth. The next most impactful system is the exosystem. The mesosystem is defined by two entities within your microsysytem affecting each other. The next system is called the exosystem. The exosystem is full of things that don’t affect you directly but will eventually
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the set of regulations that an organization makes to protect and increase the society in which it functions. There are three areas of social responsiblity: Organizational stakeholders, the natural environment and general social welfare.
What is CSR? CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility indicates the actions or conducts that have strategic importance to companies. CSR has been defined as a company’s efforts or obligations in reducing and getting rid of any detrimental effects on the community and maximizing long-term beneficial effects to the company and community in which it operates (Mohr et al, 2001, cited Trendafilova et al, 2013). CSR usually starts with the general emphasis that businesses are not only responsible to generate economic returns for shareholders, but are also responsible to the environment and to other stakeholders. This is usually known as the “triple bottom line” – the company’s returns for investors, the environment and stakeholders (Markley, 2014). In today’s modern business environment, CSR is undoubtedly important because whenever possible, customers would like to purchase goods from companies they trust; suppliers want to develop business partnerships with companies they can entrust; employees want to work for companies they have a high regard for and NGO’s want to work with companies seeking possible solutions in areas of common concern. Pleasing each of these stakeholder groups enable companies to maximize their obligations to their shareholders who gain most when the needs of other stakeholder groups are met (Waldman et al, 2010).
The simple definition that sustainability is something that improves "The quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems", though vague, conveys the idea of sustainability having quantifiable limits.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is similar to an individual’s social responsibility. An individual who is socially responsible is aware of how their decisions affect the environment. Corporate social responsibility can be define as “how well a company meets its economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities” (Peter & Sarah, p. 51). Corporate social responsibility holds businesses accountable to stakeholders such as consumers, in areas of concern such as environmental factors, community and society in general. As a result successful CSR initiatives creates a sustainable company in all ways: financially, ethically, environmentally, and socially. The moral problem with CSR is based on the belief that “CSR would be a cost that would be higher than the perceived benefits. By financially supporting “charity” based initiatives, firms are not performing their fiduciary duty to their stockholders” (Peter & Sarah, p. 49).
At a glance, accounting might appear as a repetitive cycle of preparing and examining financial statements. However, a brief exposure to accounting has taught me how chaotic it can be for accountants. An accountant captures and represents the information of businesses. By reviewing financial operations, an accountant helps a business run efficiently. This profession can be intellectually stimulating and rewarding. After learning about accounting, I cannot help but be interested and desire to work toward a degree in accountancy. In my studies, I have learned accountants require a plethora of qualities to be successful. And to mature from a student to a professional, I must resolve to strengthen my weaknesses. There is much I must learn and achieve, but a degree in accounting is well worth the time spent.
Sustainability is a concept with a diverse array of meanings and definitions – a widely used glamorous, ambiguous, ambivalent and vague concept that is used by different stakeholder groups in various ways. Presumably to avoid noodling over a terminology or to avoid the confrontation with a definition, most widely the concept is broken down a planning process (c.f. e.g. Döring & Muraca, 2010). That is why most common sustainability is understood as sustainable development.1
Despite the fact that it has been proposed that assimilated financial records contained ecological and social data, it was evident in the article that the genuine mix merits consideration among the stakeholders. Sustainability segments in yearly reports among numerous cases were isolated, albeit incorporated; similarly, applies to corporate administration segments in connection to sustainability. At the same time, when the corporate administration and sustainability turn out to be truly connected and reported together, these offered new doors for integrative methodologies in expansion to the bookkeeping
Sustainability simply defined to me as balancing act between the development of sustainability is necessary for both planet Earth and humans to survive. This is reinforced in the World Commission on Environment and Development report (1987) that sustainable development must meet the needs of the present without compromising the well-being of future generations”. The Earth Charter Organization widened the idea of sustainability to respect for a culture of peace, universal human rights, nature, and economic justice (What is sustainability?, n.d.).
One of their main goals should be that they want to be good corporate citizens. In order for a company to be a good corporate citizen they should be doing a range of different activities within their organisation taking into consideration the 3 pillars of sustainability which are Profit which is part of the economic and financial aspect, People looks at the social part, and Planet which is to do with the environment. As mentioned in (Shah and Ramamoorthly, 2014), that from a company’s perspective of corporate citizenship, it is to make sure that the impact is positive and they try to reduce the negative effect on society and the environment, making sure that they still receive a good enough return from the investors. For a company within the accounting and finance sector, one of the main elements of being a good corporate citizen is to ensure that they comply with the reporting and disclosure requirements. This is very important because when they have to prepare their accounts and financial statements it is vital that they follow the strict guidelines that have been stated by the IFRS. If these guidelines are not followed, then the company will have to face several
The United Nations recently published a list of goals they hope to accomplish by 2030 called the Sustainable Development Goals. These goals will replace the Millennium Development Goals, which were set in 2000, when they expire at the end of 2015. Some of these goals include ending poverty, promoting gender equality, and improving water and sanitation conditions. Arguably, the most important goal is to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” (in text citation- NY Times Article). Hunger was also an important goal on the MDG list, yet it was not fully accomplished (in text citation- Progress chart). The goals was to reduce hunger by half, and yet, the number of people who go to bed hungry
Environmental sustainability is making decisions and taking actions in the interest of protecting the natural world, preserving the capability of the environment to support human life and ensuring that humans use the environment in a way that does not harm the environment. It also questions how economic development affects our environment vice versa.
There are lots of environmental issues going on globally. The earth faces problems such as pollution, global warming, waste disposal, and loss of biodiversity. These are just a small amount of issues out of the so many. These environmental problems pose an abundant amount of risk to the health of humans and animals. There needs to be a solution to all these problems and that is by informing others, so that way everyone can make the environment a better place.
Today talking about environmental issues lately to be like a common topic discussion until people take it for granted. However, the world facing a complex environmental problems related to each trouble that connected to one another and come out with greater impacts to the environment and humans. This is because the effects of environmental only can be seen in long term period rather than immediately result show up. Environmental issues must become one of the controversial matters in the society in order to make people know the truth what the world currently facing. There were a lot of environmental disaster happened such as climate change, global warming, various of pollutions, earthquake and etc. the rise of environmental issues begin with this urban development occur through several countries following with the technologies equip along. For sure, development will cause a huge negative impact to the environment if it deals without a care. Besides, the environment is the place in the ecosystem to hold and use in finding resources to continuously survive in this world. Thus, the finding and digging for the resources which happening extensively without preservation will not restore the surrounding similar with before. But then, the change cannot be refuse and people need to take an action to save the threaten the world and the ecosystem from being extinct. If each country has own output in causing an environmental problem, then consider the world to hold all the damage occurred. Exposing the effects of environmental issues throughout the world, make people realize the important to take care the environment.