ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the common trends of sustainable development, environmental conservation and natural resources management among governmental and bilateral organizations. It first introduces the general framework of ecology and relates to the literature in sociology and economics. The book also utilizes the sociology of population of organizations to describe organization growth and development and its link to sustainability and accounting. It presents the ecological anthropology and industrial ecology approaches to sustainability, and the bilateral and multilateral international development organizations and the United States federal government. There is a discussion of how colleges and universities have integrated sustainability coverage within existing business, management and accounting courses. Some of them have introduced standalone courses to cover the subject matter of sustainability accounting.