Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
999988 | Critical Perspectives on Accounting | 2013 | 10 Pages |
Abstract
This paper seeks to explore whether mainstream financial accounting when it appears to
genuflect to the ‘environment’ actually has anything substantive do with – or to say about
– the natural world. It seems important to remember that conventional financial
accounting is a predominantly economic – and not very internally logical – practice which
has no substantive conceptual space for environmental or social matters per se. It has no
space for what Thielemann calls ‘market alien values’ – values such as environmental
concern. The paper re-examines why we might account at all and revisits why accounts
which explicitly recognise environmental (and social) issues can be potentially very
important indeed. What seems clear is that whilst any account that sought to reflect
environmental and social exigencies might choose to use the technologies of accounting –
notably debits and credits – there is no essential reason why they must do so. If we wish to
account for an environment, we almost certainly would not start with the somewhat
bizarre and tortured foundations of conventional financial accounting.
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities
Business, Management and Accounting
Accounting
Authors
Rob Gray,