ABSTRACT
Accounting for sustainable development does not solely focus on understanding the interactions between organizations and aspects of their external environment. Indeed, there is a literature that seeks to explore what is happening within organizations to understand (for instance) the dynamics that inform the production of sustainability-related accounts as well as what role this information might play within the life of the organization. In addition, accounting researchers are interested in actions that organizations are taking internally (which may not be linked to reporting activities – such as investment appraisal) to respond to aspects of the sustainable development agenda, the role of accounting technologies in those responses and the characterization of why some attempts to change are effective while others are not. This chapter focuses on these activities and frames them as being to do with the extent to which organizations change in response to sustainability accounting activities. A focus on change arises because many social accountants are committed to ‘opening up … new spaces’ (Gray, 2002 , p. 698) at the organizational level to explore possibilities for less socially, ecologically and economically damaging activities. Indeed, the desire for change arises from concern about the social and environmental harms that threaten people and the planet (Freire, 1998 a, 1998 b; Gadotti, 2003 ; Porritt, 2007 ). Change, therefore, has both a material basis (related to processes that are less damaging to and/or more likely to support resilient ecosystems, societies and economies) as well as a conceptual basis (that is, changing organizational beliefs, values, norms and rules – to use language drawn from Laughlin, 1991 ).
