Accounting for sustainable development practices: theoretical emergence and development

The main objective of this chapter is to explore how accounting tools and practices could be used to develop accounting for sustainable development (ASD hereafter) data recording and reporting practices to address the social and environmental considerations. This chapter uses a systematic review to identify the main theoretical framework and approaches that have been used to understand and explain the ontological framework of ASD practices. This framework involves stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, and the triple bottom line (TBL hereafter) approach. The main argument is that These theoretical approaches were are used to understand and interpret the development of ASD data recording and reporting practices in business organizations (Mansell, 2013).