A number of articles on social and environmental accounting have been published in recent issues of Accounting Forum. These papers have explored, inter alia, how social and environmental accounting may contribute to an appreciation of, for example, the theorisation of change in the social totality and the relationships between accounting and transnational global processes. Similarly, studies in this and other journals have examined aspects of how the craft of accounting may interpret that environmental and social information, the relationship between critical theory and the negative dialectic as it relates to accounting, and of equal import, attempts to create more socially emancipatory and constructive interpretations of that reality.

This special edition was motivated by a desire to discuss the links that accounting, finance and managerial theory have with corporate social, environmental and sustainability performance. Containing, as they do, current thinking on these issues supported by strong empirical elements, the papers in this edition provide, we believe, a range of robust and timely engagements with the issues raised.

Specifically, however, this special edition aims to explore recent developments and considers these in the light of an ‘enabling accounting agenda’. In general terms, this means embracing the view that accounting ‘can be a subjective communication for emancipation which can go beyond conventional accounting and measurement of the supposedly objective’.

Central to this edition’s emphasis is the empirical dimension to the ‘greening of accounting’ by which we interpret the value of current initiatives whilst determining whether more perspicuous ways forward exist. In this regard, the papers in this special edition offer interpretations that expand, uncover and explore the social causes that underlie environmental or ‘sustainability’ accounting and reporting. In practice, however, there exists a need to promote new forms of accounting that are capable of advancing the enabling accounting agenda. The papers share a pragmatic orientation. In introducing them we recognise and share some of the ontological challenges of the radical critique and its deconstruction of accounting1 reality. At the same time, however, we view the papers in this special edition as contributions to a conversation attempting to explore how corporations and social institutions act as sites for contention and struggle.

A prominent motivation behind this special edition was to search for pragmatic ways forward. The idea was to search for a way of thinking whereby being critical goes beyond a negative dialectic and towards a more socially emancipatory and ‘realist’ conception of the totality. In this regard, Geoff Lamberton’s paper sets the scene, inviting readers to consider the state of play in ‘sustainability accounting’ up to this point. He reminds us of the links between orthodox accounting and reporting practices, and developments in organisational performance and benchmarking of the social, environmental or sustainability performance agenda. His adroit review of emerging practice is focused on the pragmatic value of reformed accounting and reporting practices in the context of business organisations which are taking some tentative (if hitherto inadequate) steps in the direction of accounting for and reporting on ‘sustainability’. Lamberton interestingly notes the well intentioned but not necessarily efficacious Global Reporting Initiative, which it can be argued, may simply facilitate managerial capture. In the very worst cases, this simply creates a false impression of material change. Indeed, Lamberton’s paper captures key motivating themes that this special issue addresses:

• What, for example, are organisational beliefs with regard to the social justice objectives of social reporting?

• Is it reasonable to expect that organisations working within the constraints of a capitalistic society can conceive of an agenda for, and a role in, addressing poverty as an agenda for social justice implies?

• How are the intrinsic values of people in organisations engaging in the process of disclosing aspects of (un)sustainability performance?

• Do organisational processes have the potential to ‘prove a significant and cathartic experience’?

And, more generally, we see a concern amongst each of the themed papers with the enabling potential of social, environmental or sustainability reporting.

In this regard, pragmatic research, case studies and field research provide different ways to benchmark, interpret and evaluate the efficacy of the project to enable accounting. Lamberton usefully concludes with the observation that accounting and accountants are emerging as seemingly important agents in the ‘greening’ of capitalistic business organisations. They provide information in the context of decisions that may add to or alleviate the social and environmental stresses we increasingly encounter.

In the context of the above, Jill Solomon and Lauren Darby provide rare insights into the enabling potential of private social, ethical and environmental (SEE) disclosures between companies and institutional investors. Drawing on detailed empirical evidence, they provide evidence that private SEE disclosure can nurture mutual understanding between companies and their core institutional investors. They argue that ‘good’ enabling allows private SEE disclosure and must be characterised through an approach that recognises the importance of a dialogic and language-based approach to education. Such a process is not idealised, however. Solomon and Darby recognise the potential for other, less constructive, outcomes of the private SEE disclosure process. Further, what is currently suggested, as a process capable of providing mutual benefit to companies and institutional shareholders is recognised as potentially open to capture, where the newly found relationship between these bedfellows leads to the creation of joint myths rather than critical reflection and consciousness.

This supposition reflected an enthusiastic commitment to create an awareness of humanity’s impact on the natural environment through the art of accounting. In this regard, Solomon and Darby utilise Freire’s (2004) contention that the critical argument leads toward an excessive cynicism and pessimism about pragmatic change. They proceed to argue that the social and environmental accounting agenda must be designed at both the meso- and micro-levels of society. In the spirit of Gray, Owen, & Maunders (1987), they observe that critique without proposal ‘is not likely to nurture genuine and accountable dialogic disclosure’.

Georgakopoulos and Thomson examine on one recent attempt to engage and report on ecological impact. It concerned the Scottish salmon farming industry. Initially motivated by an expectation that the use of environmental accounting would be present in evaluating the decision to ‘go organic’, they detail the salmon farmers’ decisions on organic farming, drawing on Beck, 1992 U. Beck, Risk society: Towards a new modernity, Sage Publications, London (1992).Beck, 1992, Beck, 1995 and Beck, 1996 risk society thesis. They found, disappointingly, that the decision to go organic had little to do with an appreciation of the structural social, environmental and economic risks associated with the industry. Rather, price forecasts and agricultural decision heuristics were found to be more likely explanations. From the perspective of social and environmental research, a key issue in the case was the absence of environmental accounting in guiding the decision.