<p>Background: The latest development within the business world has been characterized by deregulation and globalization which has made the company bigger and even more influential. The increased power has resulted in a shift of responsibility for the community from the public to the private sector. (Steinholtz och Löhman, 2003) There have been many trends regarding what accountability includes and how financial accounting can be complimented in a useful and reliable way. Some trends have come to stay whilst others have shown to be less successful or the world has not been ready for them. (Larsson, a, 2002) </p><p>Purpose: The purpose with this paper is to look at the historical development towards accounting for sustainability and to investigate what factors that might have hade an impact on this development. Besides this the paper aims to analyse how general acceptance can be achieved and how present practice look like. </p><p>Delimitations: The study regarding current practice is limited to the companies that have won the Swedish trial to the European Sustainability Reporting Awards (ESRA) competition for best sustainability report and best newcomer for 2001 and 2002. This is done to bring forward the predecessors within sustainability reporting. Method: The study is qualitative and built on secondary data. A selection of information from scientist, laws and practitioners have been used to enlighten the historical development that leads to accounting for sustainability. </p><p>Result: The acceptance regarding environmental reporting is a consequence of the attention it has received from nations, authorities and the public in general. When it comes to social reporting it hasn’t come to be as accepted amongst companies. Access to general guidelines that can be used by all companies is important for satisfying stakeholder’s information need. If organisations continue to bring forward role models, in time the sustainability report will be able to give useful information and be a compliment to financial reporting. The sustainability report should be seen as a communication tool that can be used to inform and legitimize the companies operations. This information is needed to be able to evaluate the company’s future position and sustainable development.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:liu-2005 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Sabel, Natasha, Sundli, Mariel |
| Publisher | Linköping University, Department of Management and Economics, Linköping University, Department of Management and Economics, Ekonomiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
| Relation | Magisteruppsats från Ekonomprogrammet, ; 2004:24 |
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