>25 February 2004
Accepted 26 February 2004
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal
Vol. 17 No. 5, 2004
pp. 731-757
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
DOI 10.1108/09513570410567791
reporting” is clearly a subset of ethical reporting and generally also considered a subset of
social reporting, but as the most common type of social and ethical reporting, warrants a
separate label (Adams, 2002, p. 247).
Some attention has also been paid to analysing what and how companies report onparticular issues and the quality of that reporting. A great deal of effort has been putinto examining why companies report what they do. Such work must continue givenhow rapidly the field of ethical, social and environmental reporting continues todevelop internationally and given the changes in the social, political and technologicalcontext in which these developments are taking place. This study, however, examinesin detail what one company does not report and how corporate portrayal of ethical,social and environmental performance compares with the portrayal of performance insources originating from outside the corporation. Such an examination allowsconclusions to be drawn about the extent to which a company has discharged its dutyof accountability to stakeholders.Accountability can be defined as the “giving of an account” encompassing, for thepurposes of this article, both the “account” itself and the process followed in providing
that account to stakeholders. Nowadays, stakeholders are demanding the “giving of anethical, social or environmental account” as well as a financial account. Somecompanies instead now produce “sustainability reports”, but they sometimes focus on
sustainability of the business rather than environmental sustainability. For example,Barry Stickings, President of the Chemical Industries Association and Chairman ofBASF, finished his lecture to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on “sustainabledevelopment through innovation”, with the statement:
I see the continuing debate over sustainable development as anopportunity for responsibleindustries such as ours to rehabilitate the word, “profit” and bringthe positive role of profits
back to the centre-stage of public debate (Stickings, 2001, p. 27).
Rather than being concerned with profits and financial accountability, accountabilityas far as this article is concerned demonstrates corporate acceptance of its ethical,social and environmental responsibility. As such the “account”givenshould reflectcorporate ethical, social and environmental performance.One of the means by which companies can provide such an account is through ahard copy report. A good “ethical” report should be transparent and represent a
genuine attempt to provide an account which covers negative as well as positive
aspects of all material impacts. To be accountable, reports need to demonstrate
corporate acceptance of its ethical, social and environmental responsibility. Such
acceptance can be demonstrated through a clear statement of values with
corresponding objectives and quantified targets with expected achievement dates.
Companies should then report performance against those targets. Reports should give
a balanced view of key ethical issues facing the company.
Perhaps the most serious problem with current reporting, and the key one
addressed in this paper, is its lack of completeness. If reports are to be complete
covering all mate
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