New issue of the Social and Environmental Accountability Journal published

SEAJ 34(1) Special issue on Carbon Accounting

The first issue in 2014 of the CSEAR journal is a special issue on “Carbon Accounting: The Contribution of Social and Environmental Accounting to the Debate”, guest edited by myself, featuring three main contributions by Francisco Ascui (University of Edinburgh), Martin Freedman and Jin Dong Park (Towson University) and Begoña Giner (Univesity of Valencia).

Ascui’s paper is a review of carbon accounting literature that provides insight into the directions in which SEA research should move to make a more ambitious contribution in the area. He contends that the focus of carbon accounting research is relatively confined to content analyses of corporate disclosures, opening the opportunity to conduct research in other areas, such as the interplay between carbon markets and financial accounting.

Freedman and Park examine the compliance of certain public US firms with mandatory disclosures on climate change, concluding that the regulation produced an increase in disclosure, but also a diversity of disclosure practices among companies.

Begoña Giner, member of the Advisory Council of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and former member of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), examines the evolution of carbon financial accounting regulation and uses a suggestive currency metaphor to suggest an alternative carbon financial accounting approach based on considering emission allowances as payment instruments.

As usual, this issue also contains a series of articles reviews and book reviews that researchers interested in social and environmental accountability might find a useful introduction to relevant recent literature.