Social imaginaries, part II: for environmental accounting – situating the social imaginary in a tentative pedagogic categorisation

Glen Lehman and Renée Palmer

Chapter 36 in Handbook of Critical Environmental Accountability and Sustainability, 2026, pp 538-550 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines two significant strands of environmental and philosophical input, using the social imaginary to understand the emergence of environmental accounting. The emergence of philosophical and sustainable development as a complex notion through which social and environmental issues must be addressed – whether at the policy, personal or organisational levels – has grown in the accounting literature. In addition to explorations of what sustainability may mean for accounting and finance, the imaginary looks at the ideas underpinning them. We have experienced growth in both critiques of sustainability reporting, and experiments and speculations on how accounting for sustainability might advance. As with social and environmental accounting, this growth has attracted critique.

Keywords: Environmental; Philosophical; Sustainable Development; Liberal; Interpretivism; Subversive; Critical; Environmental Accounting Perspectives; Social Imaginary; Liberalism; Business Case; Philosophy; Environmental Accounting; Placement Ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781802201765
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