ABSTRACT
Our concern is that without effective social and environmental accountability mechanisms many of the hazards associated with contemporary Western societies to our ecosystems, society and economic well-being will remain uncontested and allowed to proliferate. In this chapter we report on the diversity of social and environmental accountability mechanisms observed in our research on salmon farming in Scotland 1 and discuss its relationship to stakeholder risk perceptions and risk conflicts. We discuss how Beck’s conceptualization of risks and risk conflicts 2 help evaluate the effectiveness of social and environmental accounting processes, practices and expertise. Comprehending Beck’s work can offer a number of important insights into how social and environmental accounting could contribute to social and environmental risk governance and effective stakeholder engagements. Risk conflicts are important engagement opportunities for stakeholders. They are also contexts where social and environmental accounts are extensively used. However, the social and environmental accounting processes and practices observed in salmon farming risk conflicts differed considerably from corporate social and environmental reporting. 3
