Julius Wenzig involved in the conceptual development of sustainability management accounting

More and more companies want to make a positive contribution to global sustainability challenges such as limiting climate change or respecting human rights and sell more sustainable products on the market. At the same time, companies are increasingly affected by challenges such as drought, flooding or water scarcity, or are required by national regulation to report on sustainability. Thus, there are multiple interconnections of companies with global sustainability challenges, markets and national regulations that go beyond company boundaries and can be described as macro and meso levels. Julius Wenzig, Senior Consultant at corsus, has recently investigated these interconnections in a scientific article with international researchers. The team investigated in particular with regard to sustainability management accounting how contributions and influences of the companies to the macro and meso level look like and how these can be reflected in the sustainability management accounting. An article on this topic was recently published in the renowned International Journal of Management Reviews.

Companies are of crucial importance for sustainable development, e.g. in the sense of the Sustainable Development Goals. In order for managers to take sustainability into account in their decisions, processed information is required. Management accounting can provide support here and raise awareness of desirable and undesirable environmental, social and economic impacts. Corporate sustainability management accounting typically organizes the collection, analysis and communication of environmental, social and economic information for internal use by the organization’s managers. In order to be able to reflect the interconnections with global sustainability challenges, markets and national regulations, these should also be shown in sustainability management accounting.

The article provides a systematic literature review of how sustainability management accounting considers the corporate context and contributions to sustainability transformations beyond corporate boundaries. The analysis challenges the conventional assumption of an exclusively internal scope without links to the macro and meso levels for sustainability management accounting. An analysis framework is proposed to reflect context, contributions to global challenges, and corporate support for socio-ecological change. Based on the analysis framework, companies can more easily reflect their macro- and meso-level contributions and influences and build a more holistic sustainability management accounting. The article is entitled “Corporate sustainability management accounting and multi-level links for sustainability – A systematic review” and is freely available in Germany through Wiley.