ABSTRACT
It is not possible to summarize in a few short pages all the themes that could be drawn from the various chapters of this book. Nor is such a task appropriate, because the chapters largely stand by themselves. What we wish to draw out, however, in this final chapter is a sense of the most important implications that face accounting practitioners and researchers who seek to develop a form of accounting that is sufficiently responsive to the demands of sustainable development (hereafter SD). There are two themes that we will develop to assist with this task. First we will suggest the ways in which accounting (because of the nature of the discipline itself) will find the concept of SD problematic. Then we will propose some theoretical and practical developments that would be required in order for the discipline of accountancy to embrace the SD agenda and thereby to become a more effective and useful tool in any moves towards SD.
