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Social Responsibility Accounting and Sustainable Development
Introduction
Social responsibility accounting is a concept that has gained an increasing amount of
attention over the past thirty years. The concept refers to an enterprise responsibility for
the resources it uses (even if those resources are not priced in the marketplace) and for the
societal contributions it makes (Gordon - Enhancing, 2). It is usually referred to as social
responsibility and sustainable development (SR/SD), but it can also be described as
corporate citizenship or environmental responsibility. The idea first gained significance in
1976. It was then that the National Association of Accountants (now the Institute of
Management Accountants) published a research paper that outlined how to be more
socially responsible and how to more properly account for this social responsibility.
Because social responsibility was singled out in this paper, it has become the landmark
study that identified the environment as both a separate and worthy subject of importance
to be addressed by accountants (Grinnell, 1).
In addressing this issue of social responsibility and sustainable development, it is
important for one to become familiar with the notion of a triple bottom line. It is also
important to understand the implications that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has had on
SR/SD issues. At the same time, it is interesting to examine how SR/SD has been used in
practice, both in the corporate world and in the classroom.
Triple Bottom-Line
In any discussion concerning corporate social responsibility or sustainable development,
the concept of the triple bottom line oftentimes arises. A relatively recent theoretical
