Extending accounting through John Rawls's political liberalism to the natural environment

Renée Palmer, Gordon Boyce and Glen Lehman

Chapter 4 in Handbook of Critical Environmental Accountability and Sustainability, 2026, pp 49-64 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter adapts John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1998) to justify environmental accounting. The chapter encourages accountants to report on the sustainable use of resources for present and future human generations, as well as for other life forms (United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). In this way, corporations would fulfil their accountability obligations as part of an administrative solution to the environmental crisis. The essay supports the middle-of-the-road position of Gray and colleagues, adding a notion of justice to society's background institutions. The approach to the environmental crisis is theoretical and responds to the charges of pluralism, relativism and quietism raised by Tinker et al. (1991). Adding fairness to the lexicon of accountability justifies the publication of environmental information in accounting reports.

Keywords: John Rawls; A Theory of Justice; Political Liberalism; Moral Obligation; Environmental Information; Published Reports (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781802201765
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781802201772.00011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:20970_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().