Exploring Accounting Sustainable Development Hybridisation in UK Public
Sector
Ian Thomson*, corresponding author
Reader in Accounting,
University of Strathclyde
i.h.thomson@strath.ac.uk
Dr Suzana Grubnic,
Lecturer in Accounting & Finance,
University of Nottingham.
Suzana.Grubnic@nottingham.ac.uk
Dr, Georgios Georgakopoulos,
Assistant Professor of Financial Accounting,
Amsterdam Business, School, University of Amsterdam,
g.georgakopoulos.uva.nl.
Professor David Owen,
Professor of Social and Environmental Accounting,
University of Nottingham,
David.Owen@nottingham.ac.uk
Exploring Accounting Sustainable Development Hybridisation in UK Public Sector
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between accounting and sustainable development in two public
sector contexts in the United Kingdom. By employing Miller et al.’s (2008) extended notion of
hybridisation, the paper investigates transformations associated with practices, processes and
expertises developed in two different fields. A cross-comparative approach allows for a more
nuanced understanding of how sustainable development in connection to accounting is pursued and
what changes have developed. Our analysis reveals that the Environment Agency’s accounting
sustainable development hybrids capture a wider version of sustainable development than those at
West Sussex County Council. However, in both cases the extent of hybridisation was impacted upon
by lack of resources to the public agencies and seemed to affect the accounting field less than the
sustainable development one. Further, the accounting sustainable development hybrids were predisposed to eco-efficiency concerns in contrast to issues associated with social justice. Both cases
indicate scope for more boundary spanning opportunities in addressing sustainability and warn
against relying upon calculative capture in this important agenda.
Introduction
In this paper we explore the hybridisation (Kurunmäki and Miller, 2006; Miller et al. 2008) of
sustainable development and accounting processes, practices and expertise in the Environment
Agency and West Sussex County Council (WSCC), two UK public sector organizations with a strategic
commitment to embed sustainable development throughout their organizations (Grubnic and Owen,
2010; Thomson and Georgakopoulos, 2010,). Miller et al. (2008) describe hybridisation as when two
or more discrete elements combine to create a new object that in turn forms part of an
organization’s processes, practices and expertise to manage uncertainty. In our presentation of
these case studies we provide empirical evidence that offers insights into the mechanisms as to how
accounting hybridises with sustainable development processes, practices and expertise that many
consider to be radically opposed to accounting (e.g. Cooper, 1992; Gray, 2002,2010; Maunders and
Burrit, 1992; Puxty, 1992).
Bebbington and Thomson (2007) identified global unsustainability as the world’s most urgent risk
management problem and there is growing consensus that the future of our planet has been
rendered uncertain by human activities. This fear has been supported by extensive scientific
evidence (IPCC, 2002, 2007) and is politically accepted by almost all nation states (UN, 1997;
UNFCCC, 2011). Fear of global social and ecological catastrophes has led most developed nations to
embrace sustainable development as a desirable public policy goal and the UK is no exception
(DEFRA, 2005; Northern Ireland Assembly, 2006; Scottish Executive, 2005; Welsh Assembly, 2009).
Unsustainable development is framed as a risk to all (Beck 1992a, 1992b; Beck and Willms, 2004)
and considered a wicked problem (Frame and O’ Connor, 2010). Wicked problems are considered
impossible to solve using single disciplinary processes, practices and expertise. They require
disciplinary and organizational boundary spanning processes, practices and expertise, to mitigate
their undesirable consequences. Wicked problems require urgent solutions due to the severity of
their potential hazards but are characterised by complex interdependencies and incomplete,
contradictory evidence and opinions. What appears to be a solution to a wicked problem can be the
problem migrating to another domain or the uncovering of other problems (Beck 1992a, 1992b;
Beck and Willms, 2004; Frame and O’ Connor, 2010; Power, 2004, 2007). Developing sustainably
transcends individual corporations, public service, third sector and government entities and
individual disciplines’ processes, practices and expertise (Beck et al., 1994; Frame et al, 2009; Gray,
2010). We characterise sustainable development as a boundary spanning concept, a relatively
unstable hybrid, perceived to be a solution to the fears and uncertainty of potential ecological
destruction and social disorder.
Successive UK governments have made public commitments to govern a transformation along a
sustainable development trajectory. The current UK Government’s sustainable development
strategy document (DEFRA, 2005) assigns the public sector the collective responsibility of leading
this transformation. Public sector organizations are to adopt sustainable processes and practices, reorient their activities to achieve wider societal sustainable outcomes and govern others to act
sustainably. Accounting has been identified as one of these practices and expertise required to
change as part of this transformation process (Ball, 2002, 2005; Ball and Grubnic, 2007; Ball et al.,
2009; Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008). We argue that accounting, and in particular, hybrids of
accounting and sustainable development, will be central to the (in)effectiveness of this
transformation process.
Accounting, with its calculative processes, practices and capability, is a powerful discipline in
rendering visible the risks and uncertainties of unsustainability (Bebbington and Thomson, 2007;
Gouldson and Bebbington, 2007;Power, 2007: Russell and Thomson, 2008; ). However, concerns
have been raised that accounting sustainable development hybrids could calculatively capture
sustainable development and suppress fields of visibility, forms of knowledge and techniques of
governing considered significant for any sustainable transformations ( Cooper, 1992; Cooper et al.,
2005;Everett, 2004; Everett and Neu, 2000; Gray, 2002, 2010; Neu, 2000 O’Dwyer, 2003, Russell
and Thomson, 2008). This is of particular concern where accounting sustainable development
hybrids are used to divide sustainable outcomes from unsustainable outcomes, diagnosing social
disorders and pathologies, devising sustainable transformation strategies and legitimating the use of
disciplinary powers for non-conformance. Inappropriate and partial hybrids of sustainable
development and accounting can create problematic zones of invisibility and incorrectly classify
unsustainable actions as sustainable exempting them from further interventions. Russell and
Thomson (2008) report on how the misalignment of sustainable development metrics obscured
critical aspects of the Scottish Government’s national sustainable development strategy (Scottish
Executive, 2005). These critical aspects were ignored in their accounts of progress potentially
perpetuating unsustainable practices and distorting the transformation towards a Sustainable
Scotland.
As mentioned earlier sustainable development is a relatively unstable hybridisation of many
different expertises, practices and processes (Frame et al, 2009;Frame and O’Connor, 2010; Gray,
2010; Oels, 2005). Sustainable development changes and is changed by encounters with different
expertises and practices in different contexts. Accounting is also considered to be a shifting
assemblage of processes, practices and expertise, whose boundary is constantly changing and
impacting on other social processes, practices and expertises (Burchell et al. 1980, Broadbent and
Laughlin, 2002, 2005, 2008;Hopwood, 1983; Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Miller et al., 2008;; Llewellyn,
1994; Llewelyn and Northcott, 2005; Miller, 1990; Miller and O’Leary, 1987, 1993). Sustainable
development and accounting can both be considered to be undergoing continual hybridisation,
although we argue sustainable development is less stable than accounting. Accounting sustainable
development hybridisation can be conceptualised as the hybridisation of at least two shifting
hybrids. Given the relatively stable form of accounting, concerns have been expressed that it may be
the dominant hybrid (Cooper, 1992: Everett, 2004; Everett and Neu, 2000; Gray, 2010; Gray et al.,
1997;Lehman, 2001) and therefore accounting may radically distort the conceptualisation of
sustainable development in local organizational contexts (Ball and Seal, 2005: Bebbington and Gray,
2001; Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001; O’Dwyer, 2005; Russell and Thomson, 2008). We
recognise that this is a risk, but there are also the risks of not taking risks (Miller et al., 2008; Beck
1992a, 1992b; Beck et al., 1994; Beck and Willms, 2004; Power, 2004, 2007; Wynne, 1989, 1996). As
it stands accounting remains seriously misaligned to sustainable development and without change it
will perpetuate or accelerate global catastrophes and worsening social injustice (Gray, 2010).
We suggest that the hybridisation of sustainable development with accounting is likely to be
problematic due to the lack of sustainable development expertise, practices and processes within
organizations. Holistic sustainable development processes, practices and expertise lie outside
individual organizations and there is a need to rely on boundary spanning networks as a source of
processes, practices and expertise (Frame et al. 2009, Frame and O’Connor, 2010). It is also the case
that sustainable development is concurrently hybridising with other forms of organizational and
professional expertise, practices and processes not just accounting.
Therefore accounting sustainable development hybridisation may be affected by the hybridisation of
sustainable development and other disciplinary processes practices and expertise. There is a
possibility that in any organization the embedding of sustainable development could be restricted to
the lowest common denominator between sustainable development and all other disciplinary
processes, practices and expertises, assuming there is such a common denominator. There is also
the possibility of synergistic reflexive hybridisation amongst and between sustainable development
and all other disciplinary processes, practises, and expertises leading to a radical shift in the
governing, vision and identity of that organization. In this paper we seek to explore the assemblage
that could facilitate this synergistic reflexive hybridisation rather than lowest common denominator
hybridisation.
The two case studies, WSCC and Environment Agency allow insights into the emergence of
organizational accounting sustainable development hybrids and how these hybrids rendered visible,
calculable and governable elements of sustainable development. We explore the reflexivity of the
accounting sustainable development hybridisation and evaluate the extent accounting influenced
sustainable development as well as how and to what extent encounters with sustainable
development influenced local accounting practices and processes.
The evidence from the cases suggests that the hybridisation of accounting and sustainable
development will be influenced by the hetreogeniety of existing expertises and hybridisation of
sustainable development including other ‘non-accounting’ processes, practices and expertise. We
observed that it was the calculatable elements of sustainable development that hybridised with
accounting, but those calculatable elements supported by scientific evidence where there was
scientific and political consensus on causal connections to risks (see also Beck, 1992a, 1992b; Beck et
al., 1994; Beck and Willms, 2004; Power, 1994). In both cases the accounting sustainable
development hybridisation was partial and, in particular, did not incorporate notions of eco-justice
or social equity.
The lack of local knowledge in calculatively capturing the softer social dimensions of sustainable
development was seen as an obstacle to hybridisation beyond eco-efficiency. Local expertise in
sustainable development processes and practices in the Environment Agency and WSCC was
different, but incomplete and thus restricted the embedding of a holistic conceptualisation of
sustainable development.
Our evidence suggests that in both cases accounting was less affected by sustainable development
than sustainable development was affected by accounting. The hybridisations observed were
facilitated by common calculatable features that were financially, politically and scientifically
legitimated. The longer term impact on sustainable development of this selective hybridisation
process is difficult to determine from this study, but worthy of further research.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Firstly we will review the relevant literature on the
relationships between sustainable development, the public sector, accounting and hybridisation.
This will be followed by an explanation of the research methods and a brief overview of the cases.
We will then present our findings on each of the cases separately and discuss the similarities and
differences in the two cases. We will finish with some general concluding comments and a discussion
of the wider implications of our findings.
Accounting, Sustainable Development, Hybridisation and the Public Sector
Accounting within organizations can be regarded as a hybrid boundary object (Kurunmäki and Miller,
2006; Kurunmäki et al., 2003; Laughlin, 2007; Llewellyn, 1994, Miller et al., 2008) rather than a
pristine, unadulterated assemblage of accounting processes, practices and expertise. It is part of a
network of calculations that make visible, problematise and render the organization, its products,
processes and individuals governable (Everett and Neu, 2000; Gouldson and Bebbington, 2007;
Hoskins and Macve, 1986, Llewellyn and Northcott, 2005; Miller, 1990; Miller and O’Leary, 1987,
1993; Miller and Rose, 1990; Rose 1991). Within organizations there are other processes, practices
and expertises involved in organizational governing that also rely on calculative technologies. The
boundary between accounting and other processes and practices can often be contested but can
also subject to co-operative knowledge exchange Accounting hybridisation is underpinned by the
nature of knowledge exchange processes and practices present within the organization.
A range of academic studies have described how internal accounting processes, practices and
expertise evolved at the intersections of other professions and disciplines at specific points in time
and space to deal with localised needs for new knowledge and information (including Broadbent and
Guthrie, 2008: Broadbent and Laughlin,2002, 2005, 2008; Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Kurunmäki et
al., 2003; Miller et al., 2008; Miller and Kurunmäki, 2006; Power, 2004, 2007; Robson, 1994). New
forms of expertise and knowledge emerged from these hybrid objects that drew from existing social
networks and other sources of expertise available to the organization. These new accounting hybrid
objects have been reported as having significantly changed the balance of power between different
processes and practices in favour of accounting.
(Broadbent and Laughlin, 2002, 2005, 2008;
Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Kurunmäki et al., 2003; Miller et al., 2008; Miller and Kurunmäki, 2006;
Power, 2004, 2007).
It is suggested that any hybridisation of processes and practices is influenced by the threat posed by
risks and uncertainties to specific organization’s future (Beck et al., 1994; Miller et al., 2008; Power,
2004, 2007). The greater the perceived fears the more urgent the need for new processes, practices,
and expertise to render governable these risks and uncertainties. This is accentuated when the
apparent source of these fears lies beyond the organizational boundaries and beyond the scope of
existing forms of problem solving and governing (Frame and O’Connor, 2010). We argue that
sustainable development is creating a similar fears and similar demands for new knowledge and
governing processes and practices.
The extent to which these newly perceived fears or threats transcend and challenge existing
networks of processes, practices and expertise creates problems in hybridisation processes (Miller et
al. 2008). This is accentuated when these risks are themselves novel, unstable and do not possess
professionalised, routinised governing processes, practices or expertise. Hybridisation of processes,
practices and expertise is said to occur when two or more elements rub against each other, however
this assumes that there is an established ‘thing’ for something to rub against, which is not always
the case with novel risks, fears and/or uncertainties. Resolving this absence requires extending
beyond the boundaries and often capabilities of organizations to access or create novel processes,
practices and expertise. The creation of appropriate hybrid objects will be influenced by the critical
abilities of existing organizational networks to interpret and assimilate knowledge from these
boundary spanning networks as well as the quality of information from these boundary spanning
networks.
Accounting practitioners often lack direct knowledge and experience of sustainable development
and uncritically look for ‘sustainable’ accounting solutions through their existing formal and informal
accounting professional networks. In this search practitioners are often unaware of academic
problematisations and critical evaluations of specific accounting sustainable development hybrids
(for example, Ball, 2002; Ball and Grubnic, 2007; Ball et al., 2009; Cooper, 1992; Cooper et al., 2005;
Everett, 2004; Everett and Neu, 2000; Gallhofer and Haslam, 2003; Gray, 2010; Gray et al., 1997;
Gray and Bebbington, 2001; Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001; Lehman, 2001; Puxty, 1991;
Maunders and Burrit, 1991; Lehman 2001; O’Dwyer 2003). Accounting practitioners are not alone in
this, as many different professionals operating in organizations also lack this direct knowledge and
experience of sustainable development and seek solutions from their formal and informal
professional networks (Frame et al. 2009).
Hybridisation requires a mutual acceptance of commonalities between elements as a prerequisite to
change (Miller et al., 2008, Kurunmäki and Miller, 2006; Kurunmäki et al., 2003). Hybridisation is
more likely to be problematic when it is difficult to gain mutual acceptance of these commonalities
due to apparent or real differences in the two discrete elements. Prior research suggests that
accounting hybridisation is more likely to occur when there is an element of calculability of the other
(Broadbent and Laughlin,2002, 2005, 2008; Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Kurunmäki et al., 2003; Miller
et al., 2008; Miller and Kurunmäki, 2006; Power, 1994; Robson, 1994). Shared calculative
rationalities offer a route to reflexive hybridisation and knowledge transfer and the ability to
calculatively capture elements of these novel risks, fears and uncertainties appears to be a necessary
condition for accounting hybridisation.. Many commentators have reported on the contradictory
conceptual underpinnings of accounting and sustainable development (Maunders and Burritt, 1991;
Cooper 1991; Puxty 1991; Lehman, 2001; Gray and Bebbington, 2001; Gray 2002, 2010) as well as
the impossibility of calculatively capturing the trans-disciplinary holistic nature of sustainable
development (Frame and O’Connor, 2010; Gray, 2010; Russell and Thomson, 2008).
Sustainable development and accounting hybrids are likely to emerge as other accounting hybrids
are formed i.e. through a commonality of calculatability between accounting and the risks and
uncertainties of unsustainable development. Elements of sustainable development that have been
or can be calculatively captured possess the greatest potential for initial accounting sustainable
development hybridisation. However, sustainable development transcends the boundaries of all
existing forms of expertise, professions and governing processes and practices and will therefore
form part of a diverse range of hybridisation processes and networks (Frame et al 2009, Frame and
O’Connor, 2010; Oels, 2005.). Sustainable development is impacting upon and being impacted by all
aspects of organizations and society. Within organizations most functions will be rubbing against
sustainable development and non-accounting sustainable development hybrids will be emerging e.g.
carbon counting, energy engineering, ethical procurement, clean production, eco-design.
Accounting in a local setting is unlikely only to rub directly against sustainable development
processes, practices and expertise but rather will rub against other sustainable development hybrids
and networks of interactions with these other sustainable development hybrids. In this process
sustainable development itself will become hybridised and reshaped locally, but not just by
accounting. This reformation of sustainable development will occur differently in different places
creating an organizational specific version of sustainable development and varied and localised
accounting sustainable development hybrid practices, processes and metrics. There is potential
danger that in this process of accounting becoming what it was not (Hopwood, 1983) that the
accounting sustainable development hybridisation processes will exclude that which cannot be
currently calculated creating a problematic, partial accounting of the risks, fears and uncertainties of
unsustainable development (Gray, 2010; Russell and Thomson, 2008; Spence, 2007, Spence and
Thomson, 2009.) The lack of a local history of sustainable development practices and relatively
undeveloped sustainable development networks may result in localised hybrids of sustainable
development that are unstable and unsustainable.
Concerns have been raised that sustainable accounting could calculatively capture sustainability and
suppress fields of visibility, forms of knowledge and techniques of governing considered significant
for any sustainable transformations. Of particular concern is how accounting sustainable
development hybrids construct knowledge of what sustainable development means to
organizations and how they may be used as dividing practices to diagnose ’unsustainable’
organizational pathologies and construct normal ‘sustainable’ processes and practices (Russell and
Thomson, 2008)
We argue that how accounting sustainable development hybrid objects define and divide
‘sustainable’ from ‘unsustainable’ is integral to the legitimate application of the powers of the state
(Deans, 1999, 2007,Foucault, 1991; Giddens, 1990, 1991; Beck et al., 1994) e.g. taxation,
prosecution, compulsion, detention, expulsion and violence to those not complying with these
‘sustainable’ norms. It is likely that local accounting sustainable development hybrids will not only
change internal organizational governance but potentially how these organizations govern others.
Sustainable development in the past was not an intrinsic part of the governing of and the governing
by UK public sector organizations (Ball 2002, 2005; Ball and Grubnic, 2007; Ball et al., 2009).
Sustainable Development emerged from an international public policy discourse into a public policy
objective for the UK public sector in the late 1990s (Gray and Bebbington, 2001). The UK public
sector has a long history of governing specific instances of social and ecological harm and risks that
predate the sustainable development policy discourse, but these were fragmented programmes of
action reacting to symptoms of what is now referred to as unsustainability e.g. industrial pollution,
child poverty, exploitative labour relations, homelessness, polluted water, poor sanitation, health
and safety regulations.
The UK public sector has been assigned powers over social ordering and guardianship, keeping the
population safe from threats and risks (Ball and Grubnic, 2007) and unsustainable development is
now politically accepted as such a threat to the population. What the public sector does is politically
determined and influenced by perceptions of social aspirations. The public sector does what others
perceive as necessary and the right thing to do (Ball and Grubnic, 2007). The public sector also
provides that which the market cannot or will not do (Ball and Seal, 2005; Perrin, 1985; Pollitt, 2003;
Stiglitz, 2000). Public service tasks are underpinned by a set of social values, a public service ethos
and promoting social welfare policy (Boyne, 2002). There are considerable commonalities between
public service values and sustainable development discourse, but there are also significant
differences (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008; Ball and Grubnic, 2007; Lehman, 2001; Russell and
Thomson, 2008).
However, despite scientific consensus on the risks of unsustainable development and political
consensus on the merits of sustainable development, how to develop sustainably has become an
intensely contested discourse (Frame and O’Connor, 2010;Georgakopoulos and Thomson, 2008;
Gray, 2010; SDC, 2009). Outside those directly involved in sustainable development public policy
arenas, there is a lack of awareness as to sustainable development’s meaning and its radical
transformative potential. Arguably sustainable development was imposed upon UK public sector
organization through the adoption of sustainable development strategies by UK Parliaments, for
example the UK Sustainable Development Strategy in 2005 (DEFRA, 2005)1. These strategies are
collections of policies, programmes and proposals to transform all aspects of UK life, led,
operationalised and governed by public sector organizations. Public sector organizations are not only
required to transform their internal processes and practices but also the way they governed others,
while remaining within their statutory limits to act.
The current assemblage of public service provision and structure of public sector governance in the
UK was not designed to deliver sustainable transformation and to some extent must bear some
responsibility for enabling past unsustainable development (SDC, 2009, 2010, 2011). The current
structure and composition of the public sector is a function of history, ideologies, past and
anticipated crises, power conflicts and changing notions of social acceptability. Even though specific
public sector organizations may govern domains that now fall within the sustainable development
strategy discourse they will require radical changes if they are to be considered sustainable within
the contemporary politically determined notion of sustainable development (SDC, 2010, 2011).
1
Also the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish strategies (Scottish Executive, 2005, Welsh Assembly 2009,
Northern Ireland Assembly 2006).
It is important to contextualise the introduction of the UK sustainable development strategies within
the wider reforms of the UK public sector, and while these strategies (DEFRA, 2005; Northern Ireland
Assembly, 2006; Scottish Executive, 2005; Welsh Assembly, 2009)
have a radical vision and
intention, there were not seen as vehicles to oppose the ‘modernisation’ of the UK public sector or
to change the advanced liberal ideology that currently informs the governing of UK (Russell and
Thomson, 2008).
Sustainable development is only one of many, often contradictory, forms of knowledge and power
that UK public sector organizations are subject to. Public sector organizations are constrained by
other disciplinary forces, rationing of resources and limited in their ability to change. Even if
sustainable development became the dominant form of knowledge and power within a public sector
organization, this organization would be restricted by other forms of controls, discipline, required
outcomes, sanctions and accountability (Ball, 2002, 2005, 2007; Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008;
Broadbent and Laughlin, 2005: Giddens, 1990, 2002). We argue that public sector organizations are
likely to be receptive to the sustainable development discourse given the closer alignment between
sustainable development and their social welfare ethos and history (Ball and Grubnic, 2007), than
private sector organizations. We also suggest that paradoxically, the way public sector organizations
are governed in the context of existing power relations and structures means they are more
constrained in their ability to transform (Power, 2004, 2007).
Sustainable transformation of any organization requires radical changes and disruption to the
accepted discourse and techniques of governing (Frame et al. 2009; Gray, 2010; SDC, 2009, 2010,
2011). The integration of sustainable development as a legitimate field of knowledge (and resultant
field of power) within an organization may be contested and resisted, depending on its alignment
with existing processes, practices and expertise. The hybridisation of sustainable development with
existing organizational processes and practices may take different forms in different organizations
and in different parts of that organization and may involve different levels of disruption at all levels
of the organization.
Sustainable development creates a new but urgent set of risks and uncertainties to be governed and
assimilated into public sector governing. This assimilation process is unlikely to be uncontested. In
the private sector there was (and still is) a contested discourse, at times polemic, between individual
wealth maximisation and planetary sustainability (Georgakopoulos and Thomson, 2008; Gray, 2010;
Power, 2004; Lehman, 2001; Spence, 2007; Spence and Thomson, 2009). In the public sector this
contestation is likely to be more nuanced as public sector organizations have been assigned
problems, disadvantaged groups or natural systems to govern rather than generating profits. They
have been governing these problems using their own established expertise, practices and processes
for a considerable period of time. Sustainable development can be seen to be as different to public
sector organizations’ identity and ways of being as it is to private corporations.
Ball and Grubnic (2007) identify a number of responsibilities in relation to sustainability and public
sector organizations. These range from implementing sound eco-housekeeping measures to framing
a political sustainable development discourse in order to redefine public policies through a
sustainable development lens. Their research reports on the public sectors collective lack of
response from past initiatives to develop more sustainably beyond improving their ecohousekeeping measures (National Audit Office, 2005). Developing sustainably will require the
organizations that collectively comprise the public sector to change the way they think and act.
Public services need to be delivered sustainably to achieve sustainable outcomes and this will
require changes in their governing practices and processes including accounting.
There is a need for public sector institutions to learn what sustainable development means to them
(Frame et al. 2009; SDC, 2009, 2010, 2011) and reflect on the extent they are already governing
aspects of sustainable development or dealing with the consequences of unsustainability. Public
sector organizations need to reconceptualise themselves from a sustainable development
perspective and to explore their role in governing sustainable transformations. Accounting
sustainable development hybrids will be affected and will affect all stages of this sustainable
development transformation. Accounting is central to the governing of and the governing by UK
public sector and the many political and structural reforms in the past. Typically this has involved
hybridisation of private sector accounting expertise, practices and processes with public sector
professional expertise, practices and processes . This hybridisation process has been widely criticised
in the academic literature, due to the imposition of accounting processes, practices and expertise
on to all other forms of expertise (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2002, 2005, 2008, Llewelyn and
Northcott, 2005; Rose, 1991; Miller et al., 2008; Kurunmäki and Miller, 2006; Kurunmäki et al., 2003,
Miller, 1990, Miller and Rose, 1990)
Similar to Foucault (1991) description of the governmentalisation of nation states, any
sustainabilisation of the UK public sector will involve the reusing and recoding of existing expertises,
processes and practises creating new hybrid forms (Miller et al., 2008) rather than building from a
zero-base. Existing public sector governing technologies, such as accounting, can be reformulated
to create new sustainable development visibilities, create and disseminate new knowledge in
alignment with the transformation process. We intend to explore through changes in the accounting
systems the extent to which sustainable development has been hybridised into the governing of two
specific public sector organizations, which have presented themselves as committed to and leading
the sustainable transformation of other state institutions.
Research Methods
The Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) (A4S, 2009; Hopwood et al. 2010) was initiated in
2004 with the objective of integrating sustainable development with accounting to embed
sustainable development expertise within accounting and to develop and disseminate appropriate
sustainable accounting processes and practices that systematically connected sustainable
development outcomes with management decision-making and organizational actions.
As part of this transformation programme A4S has produced a number of reports and engagement
activities (see www.accountingforsustainability.org) which included a proposed accounting
sustainable hybrid set of practices and processes referred to as the Connected Reporting Framework
(CRF) – (The Prince’s Charities, 2009). The CRF was subsequently piloted by a number of
organizations. As part of evaluation of this pilot, eight case studies were undertaken by a team of
academic researchers in order to explore the effectiveness of CRF in embedding sustainable
development into organizational expertise, practices and processes.
Eight teams of academic researchers, who were not involved in the development of the CRF, were
invited to participate in the CRF evaluation case studies. The two case studies that form the
empirical sites of this paper were drawn from this pilot evaluation programme. The initial practice
oriented findings have been published (Hopwood et al., 2010) and used by A4S project team to
inform the future development of CRF. In addition to these practice oriented findings, this
programme was designed to inform theoretical explorations of the often troubled relationship
between accounting and sustainable development.
An initial meeting between all academics participating in this programme took place in London to
exchange ideas on how to explore the common grounds of inquiry and on drawing out peculiarities
of each specific case. A core set of research themes was established but in a way that allowed each
research team discretion in adapting methods to the individual contexts of the case-organizations .
A series of meetings between the research teams were held to exchange information on initial
observations from the interviews and documentary analyses. These meetings helped inform the
collective dimension of this research programme. Three months after the completion of the
empirical data collection stage, workshops were held in London where the research teams formally
presented their initial case analyses and exchanged ideas for the theorisation of their findings. There
was not an explicit theoretical framework underpinning the collective research project with each
team having autonomy as to the subsequent development and exploration of their individual case
study.
Included in this research programme were two UK public-sector organizations; the Environment
Agency and West Sussex County Council, who volunteered to participate in the piloting of CRF and in
the pilot evaluation case studies. Both of these organizations are externally recognised as leading UK
public sector organizations in relation to integrating sustainable development into their practices
and processes. In both cases the integration of sustainable development into their organizational
processes and practises and integration, including accounting, predated the A4S project and the CRF
pilot exercise. Therefore, this paper does not report on the specific impact of the CRF on the
accounting sustainable development hybridisation but rather explores the wider hybridisation
processes between sustainable development and accounting in the case organizations.
In this paper, the authors use a comparative case-study approach to compare the efforts of two
organizations and how sustainable development has been interpreted in each. Focus upon public
sector organizations responds to an observation of hegemonic accounts of sustainable development
by business movements (Gray, 2010) and a general call for more research in this sector (Ball and
Grubnic, 2007; Ball et al., 2009). However, the cases are sufficiently different and offer the
opportunity of generalising theoretically (Yin, 2003) on the dynamics that impact upon hybridisation
of accounting and sustainable development. Brief descriptions of both cases are offered below.
West Sussex County Council
West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is managed by an elected cabinet and executive board and is
Conservative controlled. Located in the South East of England, it serves a population of 760,000 and
is responsible for providing 80% of local government services (WSCC, 2009a). These services include
highways, schools, children and adults services, early years, libraries, community safety, fire and
rescue, adult education, youth services, planning, countryside management, waste management,
rights of way, emergency planning, archives and records, the registration service and trading
standards (WSCC, 2005). WSCC has a varied landscape and half of its area is classified as nationally
designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The social make-up of WSCC is similarly varied.
Rural parts of West Sussex are affluent with high standards of living however there are areas of
relative deprivation and high health inequalities amongst residents of the coastal strip and in the
north of the County. WSCC employs around of 23,000 employees (6,880 full time equivalents) and
has an annual budget in the region of £1.3 billion (WSCC, 2009/10 Facts and Figures, 2009b).
However, given a series of relatively poor financial settlements they are under severe financial
pressures. Since 2006 they have undertaken a Fundamental Service Review that resulted in savings
of £40 million (ibid, 2009b).
Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is an Executive Non-departmental Public Body responsible to the Secretary
of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Sponsored Public Body
responsible to the National Assembly for Wales. Its principal aims are to protect and improve the
environment and to promote the sustainable development of England and Wales. It is also
responsible for protecting communities from flooding risks, managing water resources and enforcing
and monitoring the carbon reduction commitments arising from the Climate Change Act (2008). The
Environment Agency plays a central role in delivering the environmental priorities of central
government and the Welsh Assembly (www.environment-agency.gov.uk/aboutus/default.aspx). The
Environment Agency currently employs 13,500 employees with an annual budget of more than
£1.1bn a year, of which around 60% comes from government. The remainder of its finance mainly
comes from various charging schemes. The Environment Agency’s head office is split between Bristol
and London and operates from eight regional offices and 22 area offices.
The interviews in both organizations occurred in the period April to August 2009. Table 1 outlines
the job description or title of those interviewed. In both cases the interview process began with a
general roundtable discussion with our initial contacts to explore the scope of our research and
identify key organizational representatives to interview. We attempted to gather insights from a
range of different disciplines operating within both organizations rather than limit interviews to
accounting related employees. Access to employees as interviewees was negotiated between the
research teams and the two organizations. Both organizations were co-operative and as can be seen
from Table 1, high level access was granted.
The employees interviewed included chief executives, accounting staff, staff who designed the
accounting sustainable development hybrid practices and processes, staff who operated the
accounting sustainable development hybrid practices and staff who used the accounting sustainable
development hybrid practices and processes. In addition we were able to interview a member of
the Environment Agency’s Board of Director, who was also chair of the Audit Risk and Governance
Committee and an elected member of WSCC who held the position of Cabinet Member for Finance
and Resources.
The range of representatives interviewed allowed the exploration of the accounting sustainable
development hybridisation from multiple perspectives as well as offering insights into each specific
organizational context in terms of expertise, processes and practices. All but one of the interviews
were conducted on site, the remaining interview was conducted by telephone. This was a result of
an interviewee not being available at the times the interviewers were on-site.
Table 1 : Environment Agency and West Sussex County Council representatives interviewed.
Environment Agency
West Sussex County Council
Chief Executive
Chief Executive
Director of Finance
Cabinet Member for Finance and
Resources.
Head of Financial Management
Group
Manager,
Customer
and
Communities Finance
Chair of Audit Risk and Governance Sustainability Group Manager
Committee
Head of Environmental Finance
Sustainability Group Team-Members
(3)
Environmental Finance Manager
Economic Research Assistant
Team Manager – Internal Environmental Internal Communications Manager
Management Systems
Human Resources Manager
Training Manager
Regional Operational Director
Business Change Project Manager
Senior
Emergency
Management
Advisor
Almost all of the interviews lasted approximately one hour. Interviewees were co-operative, open,
friendly and supportive. All interviews were recorded and summary notes were written up as soon
as possible after each interview. The interviews were transcribed and the transcripts coded with
simultaneous grouping of discussed themes (Kitchin and Freundschub, 2000) using the protocols
described by O’Dwyer (2003). Emerging themes and our subsequent coding scheme were informed
by notes taken, post-interview discussions and analysis of documents provided by the case
organizations.
Our research methods were emergent in nature, learning from each interview how best to test and
challenge the emerging themes. Methods and themes co-developed as the data and interpretations
accumulated, allowing each interview to build on the previous work. Representatives from the
organization(s) were interviewed until a degree of empirical saturation was reached. In addition we
examined and incorporated in our data analysis strategy documents and annual accounts. These
secondary sources were analysed with the codes developed from the interview data.
By systematically comparing interviews, we were able to discern different modes of governance,
factors that influenced strategic decisions on implementing and promoting sustainable
development, evidence of the mechanisms associated with accounting sustainable development
hybridisations and perceived problems and obstacles to the embedding of sustainable development.
In our analysis we looked for similar responses, potential contradictions and outlying ideas worth
following up. Our interview protocols allowed us to gather information from different positions and
perspectives within the Environment Agency and WSCC and to triangulate their “description” with
that provided by others in different levels of the case organizations.
A number of interrelated themes emerged from our analysis. These included: level of power over
organizations; perceived freedom to act; resource availability for achieving strategic ambitions in
relation to sustainable development; level of perceived risks associated with sustainable
development; political context associated with their functions and responsibilities; existing
knowledge and expertise in relation to sustainable development; contextualised definitions of
sustainable development; existing accountability requirements; use of boundary spanning networks
of expertise; and external perception of the organization’s sustainable development expertise. These
themes were used to structure the analysis of each case and for our comparative analysis/ The
following sections will present our analysis of the cases, starting with WSCC.
Accounting Sustainable Development Hybridisation in West Sussex County Council
This section explores the hybridisation of sustainable development and accounting processes,
practices and expertises at one local authority but at two governing levels. Particularly, we consider
approaches to and extent of hybridisation by the Cabinet and Chief Executive’s Board, and
Sustainability Group. From the former, we can infer broad policy approaches and, from the latter,
positioning by a dedicated resource into creating new hybrid practices and, further, dissemination
of understanding within the Council. The analysis reveals that hybridisation was significantly
impacted upon by Central Government funding of Council activities and, furthermore, the state of
knowledge of what comprises sustainable development. In part, key representatives from the
governing levels perceived differing levels of freedoms into advancing sustainability with the
greatest scope being assumed at officer level and having a beneficial impact on the hybridisation of
accounting knowledge and sustainable development. However, there was an inter-play between the
two governing levels and this was most evident in the dominance of the economic agenda in the
running of the Council.
Key representatives from the County Council Cabinet and Chief Executive’s Board voiced
commitment to the sustainable development agenda and felt that a higher positioning in the
organization favoured future roll-out. The Chief Executive and Cabinet Member for Finance and
Resources both held prior roles orientated toward advancing environmental considerations and,
following on, were well versed in the importance and language of environmental protection and
sustainability. Respectively, the Chief Executive previously held office as the County’s Director for
Environment and Development and the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources moved to this
position having previously been responsible for the Environment and Economy. Leadership in-house
and of the surrounding local community was articulated by the Chief Executive thus:
“There’s two real issues on that; one is the environmental footprint of the
organization as an organization and the other, and much broader answer,
is around policy and other leads. [What] does the County Council give West
Sussex as community leaders, as the providers of 80% of local government
services? [What does it provide] to others, to pursue more sustainable
approaches?”
However, given accounting expertise both at disposal from within and outside the organization and
amassed from role positioning, hybridisation of sustainable development and accounting was
limited. Indeed council realities of a financial nature bought accounting to the fore and, as a
consequence, consigned sustainable development as a secondary consideration within the
organization as a whole. Specifically, finance settlements deemed the worst of all county councils
from 2006/07 coupled with minimal Government grant increases and a pledge to keep Council Tax
affordable, accumulated in a Fundamental Service Review of County Council activity. The Chief
Executive stressed the urgency of the situation as follows:
“...we’ve been in the process over the last two or three years of looking at
everything we do and we do have to make significant financial reductions.
It would be impossible to feel [value-for money pressures] more.”
Working alongside in-house accountants and external consultants recruited from KPMG, the Chief
Executive’s Board and Cabinet Sub-Group (comprised of Leader, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member
for Finance and Resources), initially identified £30m worth of cash savings from non-core activities.
The focus was upon pushing the boundaries of accounting expertise in order to maintain front-line
services and not, for example, on quantifying financial implications of social and/or environmental
practices.
Nevertheless, the incorporation of sustainability across the organization continued and, rather than
hybridised, seemed to work alongside accounting in terms of consideration of new ventures. In this
vein, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources presented the Council’s approach to
sustainability as ‘360° vision, 360° thinking and 360° of sustainability’. To this end, a fuller vision was
achieved by applying a Sustainability Appraisal to plans, projects and policies in order to identify and
evaluate economic, environmental and social impacts. As an example, a PFI street lighting project
worked on jointly with Hampshire County Council and Southampton City Council was modified at the
scoping stage prior to preparation of tendering the contract. In addition to fulfilling value-for-money
criteria, the Council required bidders to explore opportunities for increasing the energy efficiency
and the skills of the local workforce, amongst others. The 360° vision and Sustainability Appraisal
were perceived as technologies for enhancing service delivery as opposed to fundamentally altering
Council priorities.
Despite the above, the County Council Cabinet and Chief Executive’s Board did use accounting
discourse in order to aid in the embedding of sustainable development throughout the Council.
Pertinently, the Council used a ‘weak to fair’ score on the Forum for the Future’s Sustainability
Standard in 2006/07 as justification of the need for further action on sustainability. The ultimate
aim of the Council was to achieve an excellent score, that is, more than 95% on the Standard, by
2011/12. In an era of audit and inspection by Central Government, it seemed that a disappointing
score resonated with leaders and workers of the Council alike and prompted action.
The
Comprehensive Performance Assessment administered and conducted by the Audit Commission, for
example, incorporated a corporate assessment as a component and recognised that individual
scores reflected the effectiveness of leadership in delivering outcomes to local people. While neither
the Chief Executive nor Cabinet Member felt that Central Government provided sufficient leadership
on sustainability, it seems that they engendered change on a similar basis.
In summary, senior officers and the Cabinet committed to progressing sustainable development
although this did not translate to hybridising accounting and SD at corporate level at the time of
research. Rather, the Chief Executive and Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources regarded lack
of financial resources as placing front-line services at risk and therefore a matter requiring urgent
and continued attention.
As a consequence, accounting in the form of cost savings in the
consolidation of support services took priority over the unbundling of implications for sustainable
development in the delivery of core services. Use of the Sustainability Standard was practical for the
Council and, furthermore, highlighted sustainability as a shared objective and of concern to all
employees as responsible agents.
A dedicated resource in the form of the Sustainability Group used the business case argumentation
in order to incorporate sustainable development into the organization. This was facilitated by prior
experience of the Sustainability Group Manager in the formulation of a joint proposal on waste
management with one of the Council’s accountants. Involvement of accountants for purposes of
embedding sustainable development into organizational life was perceived as critical:
“So we can do sustainability but where’s the finance people and they’re the
main people that you need to take forward sustainability.”
(Sustainability Group Manager)
Given a lack of resources within the Council, the accountants were thought to add legitimacy to
pursuing sustainable development and, consequently, integral to Council activities and not merely
an add-on. The accountants had expertise in compiling business cases and, further, had a role in
developing expertise within their field.
The Sustainability Group Manager suggested dual
hybridisation of accounting in the need to develop increased understanding of, for example, wholelife costing and lifecycle assessment.
Privileging of the business case argumentation had two inter-related consequences on the work of
the Sustainability Group. Firstly, the sustainable development group acknowledged the three
components of sustainable development although did not pursue sustainability by attaching equal
weighting to them:
“A lot of people go on about sustainability, they take the three core areas
now; social, environmental and economic impacts. But what we’re trying
to do is take those three areas and then that is surrounded by finance.”
(Sustainability Group Manager)
Following on, a driver for the Group’s activities was perceived to be rising energy prices and, to a
lesser extent, the incoming Carbon Reduction Commitment. On the former, the Group mapped
spending on electricity, gas and water over a period of eight years and revealed a one hundred and
twenty per cent increase between 2002/03 and 2008/09.
Secondly, the Sustainability Group
admitted to a fall-out with some environmentalists within the Council subsequent to a change in
emphasis. Particularly, they commented on the economic steer taken by the Group:
“...change the message to sell it to a new audience and then you lose your
original people because they’re like ‘Well, you no longer care about the
environment...’.”
(Sustainability Group Team-member)
The Sustainability Group justified their stance on sustainable development on grounds of appealing
to a wider audience in the Council and on the circular argument that more funds saved equated to
protection of more core front-line services.
It was pointed out, for example, that savings
accumulated from the use of less energy could be used to fund additional social workers.
Conversely, the Sustainability Group Manager reasoned that no action on energy by the Council was
akin to placing front-line services at risk and that this was exacerbated if energy prices continued to
increase disproportionately to funding received. With all services offered by the Council being
scrutinised, it can be inferred that the Sustainability Group needed to justify their own existence in
the Council and, following on, demonstrating cost savings was an apt way.
Notwithstanding the economic argument, a more equal combination of sustainable development
and accounting was precluded on the basis of the state of knowledge of sustainable development.
Approaches to SD by the Sustainability Group Manager were informed by various sources including
from both the public and for-profit sectors. Hybridised knowledge on sustainability was evident in
the following:
“...you take the Sustainability Standard and you cross it with GRI and then
you cross it with... I mean I collect corporate sustainability reports and I
have done for about ten years....”
(Sustainability Group Manager)
Content and ethos of the Prince of Wales Accounting for Sustainability framework was felt to work in
complement with ideas and practices located elsewhere. In the absence of a more complete
knowledge base on sustainability as developed for or applied to public sector organizations, the
Sustainability Group Manager opted for tools “currently the best practice in the market”. For the
future, there was an indication of working with CIPFA in order to compile a local authority GRI
implying that the public sector GRI lacked specificity.
A more equal hybridisation of sustainable development and accounting was created by a member of
the Sustainability Group in the production of a Carbon Model. This followed recommendations for
financial innovation by external consultants as well as what seemed a natural inclination toward
improving energy usage and public services by the officer. While funding provided impetus for the
creation of know-how in the form of an Energy and Water Management Plan, it relied upon prior
accounting knowledge of the Group member and, at least in the development stage, no involvement
of WSCC accounting staff. Specifically, the model considered energy inputs for isolated services and
converted these into carbon and monetary terms. Similar to activity-based costing, the model
presents opportunities for eliminating non-value adding energy units and, importantly, the reconfiguration of services. In the emergent stage, the model was applied to a service benefitting all
and perceived as carbon intensive (road maintenance) and a defined service provided to a discrete
group in the community (often referred to as travelers). Initial results pointed to prospects of
service managers re-conceptualising services through the sustainable development lens, albeit one
pre-disposed toward environmental concerns.
Their approach to sustainable development and creation of new know-how aside, the Sustainability
Group attempted to progress sustainability with accounting processes, practices and expertise in the
form of performance management.
Here, the Sustainability Group developed a Corporate
Sustainability Programme (CSP) (2009-2013) that incorporated, as far as possible, all service units.
For example, the Programme required every unit to undertake a Sustainability Workplace Tool
(SWT) on an annual basis and demonstrate improvement on the same. The SWT comprised of a
questionnaire on themes including waste, energy, procurement, water, people and transport.
Progress on the Corporate Sustainability Programme was monitored on a quarterly basis, with
results reported upwards and a red, amber, green light attached to distinguish between results.
The component elements of the SWT and CSP were biased toward the measurable and, moreover,
housekeeping issues and what may be considered as sound management practices. The content of
the CSP encompassed environmental factors identified in the A4S framework (emissions, energy
consumption, and water usage amongst others) and social considerations in the form of workplace
targets. In this sense, the Plan included targets on the achievement of efficiency measures
incorporated from A4S but internalised to reflect challenging yet achievable aspirations and, further,
equal opportunities enforced by regulation. While the CSP did overlap with the remit of the Human
Relations department, evidence of boundary spanning with other services seemed limited. For
example, the Plan did not include targets that suggest progress on such issues as variations in health
outcomes, child poverty or economic stability in different areas of West Sussex. The CSP and SWT
appeared to introduce new areas for monitoring in contrast to targets necessitating joint working,
and concomitant hybridisation of expertises, between (for example) social workers and the
Sustainability Group.
A pre-dominance of targets on eco-efficiency and a lack of visibilities on social issues was reflected
upon by the Chief Executive:
“The social aspects, the community and cohesion aspects of sustainability
have sort of been second runners in this. Partly because they’ve been the
least well defined. I don’t think there’s ever been the consensus around
what it is we’re trying to do, as there has been around, for example, carbon
and climate change.
The underpinnings for being able to tackle
sustainability on those sort of issues in economic and environment terms is
now so strong it’s sort of irresistible.”
It seemed that a lack of definition, and a relative attention deficit when considering the work of
external bodies, precluded measurement on issues such as social cohesion. As a way forward, the
Chief Executive proposed activity and, specifically, encouraging responsibility to society in staff
through volunteering activities. While the outlook was consistent with the ambition of leading by
example – and the further embedding of corporate social behaviour – it revealed sustainable
development more as a stand-alone activity. Defining social issues was perhaps perceived as a prerequisite to hybridising expertises of separate functions for purposes of addressing them.
Performance management of sustainable development by the Sustainability Group relied upon an
improved IT platform and, significantly, upward accountability. The new Perform IT system was
credited in helping to identify service units not known by them in a Council employing some 23,000
workers and with services ranging from education to planning and countryside management to
tackling domestic abuse. Compiling measures did not automatically translate into the monitoring of
all and a challenge arose in their application. Enforcement of measures relied upon a governance
structure including the Cabinet and Chief Executive’s Board as well as the Strategic Environment
Select Committee. In this way, the hierarchical structure of the organization and use of accounting
measures to assist in its maintenance continued. Arguably, the working practices of the Cabinet did
not extend to new ways of governing that a sustainable development agenda might imply.
Notwithstanding the above, the Sustainability Group did contribute to fostering acceptance of the
CSP including ownership of results throughout the Council.
A supportive stance featured in
communication by all Sustainability Group members to managers of service units. On this, the
Sustainability Group was aided by sustainability champions in the form of Staff Sustainability Group
(SSG) members. Rather than a punitive orientation being undertaken, knowledge of sustainable
development was disseminated in an effort to promote further understanding. Visibility of results
worked alongside a softer approach of engendering a common goal amongst staff members in order
to generate action.
Overall, the efforts of the Sustainability Group were pre-disposed to making visible measures related
to environmental concerns albeit with an economic slant. Reductions in water, carbon emissions
and waste are calculable and, through incorporation in the CSP, provided a sense of urgency in their
achievement. Alignment with the Council’s need to save at least thirty million pounds in a threefour year period further legitimated their measurement and the reporting of results. However,
there was limited evidence of the transformation of core services or the accounting function.
Content of the CSP revealed some partial hybridisation with support functions such as human
resources although did not include measures of social justice associated with recipients of front-line
services. Furthermore, while acknowledging input from the accountants into the compilation of
business cases, they appeared exempt from further intervention. Rather than dual hybridisation of
accounting through the work of accountants, members of the Sustainability Group used their own
knowledge of accounting practices, processes and expertise to progress sustainable development.
Where sustainable development was not considered a priority by the accountants, the Sustainability
Group worked to demonstrate the benefits of involvement, for example, by revealing the impacts of
sustainable development on service costs.
Accounting Sustainable Development Hybridisation in the Environment Agency
This section explores the hybridisation of sustainable development and accounting processes,
practices and expertises in the Environment Agency. The Environment Agency has extensive powers,
experience and expertise in governing others in relation to environmental matters. Over time they
have developed hybrid practices and processes to manage their operational environmental impacts
that incorporated and were incorporated into accounting processes, practices and expertise . The
Environmental Finance Team, a section within the Environment Agency’s Finance Department was
central to the hybridisation of accounting with sustainable development. In addition this team has
wide ranging programme of external engagements designed to influence accounting processes,
practices and expertise in other organizations. Throughout the organization employees from all
disciplines were described as highly motivated to apply their knowledge, practices and processes to
the reduction of their own environmental impacts as well as to the regulation and control of others.
Their Chief Executive stated that throughout the Environment Agency there is a desire “to maximise
the environmental outcome of every £ spent”.
Unusually the risks and uncertainties associated with unsustainable development were not regarded
as novel or threatening to the Environment Agency but rather as legitimating and empowering.
Political consensus on the risks and fears of unsustainable development, such as run-away global
climate change, often translated into new powers, responsibilities and (sometimes) resources for the
Environment Agency. For example, following the enactment of the Climate Change Act (2008) the
Environmental Agency was given the responsibility of enforcing the UK’s carbon emission reduction
regime.
The adoption of the UK Governments’ Sustainable Development Strategies (DEFRA, 2005) led to
additional responsibilities being assigned to the Environment Agency, including the promotion of
sustainable development in England and Wales. The Environment Agency, while not perceiving
sustainable development as an urgent threat to its future existence, was acutely aware of the
urgency of the threats posed by unsustainable practices and realised that changes would be required
in its practices and processes.
The Environment Agency explicitly chose a strategy of demonstrating to others by their own actions
how sustainable development can be integrated into any organization through a hybridisation of
different disciplines and professions with sustainable development expertise, practices and
processes. For example, the design and construction of their new Head Office in Bristol, which is
rated as the most environmentally efficient office in Britain but built at the same cost of a
comparable conventional building. Other hybrids mentioned in the interviews include procurement
practices and civil engineering project commissions, such as flood prevention infrastructure.
Their website contains examples of the feasibility and possibility of sustainable development
hybridisation. The Environment Agency actively promotes and disseminates the expertise, practices
and processes they have developed themselves or in collaboration with others. These include a
number of accounting sustainable development hybrid processes and practices that could be
emulated and transferred to other organizational contexts. These processes and practices are
presented as techniques that will manage and mitigate some of the perceived fears and threats
associated with unsustainable development. These accounting sustainable development hybrid
practices and processes allow the capture of specific risks in a quantitative form and provide a
financial justification for aspects of sustainable development.
The hybridisation of elements of sustainable development with accounting has been actively
promoted and accepted by senior managers and board members. In our interviews the Head of
Environmental Finance, Environmental Finance Manager, Team Manager – Internal Environmental
Management Systems expressed their initial concerns about how their accounting sustainable
development hybrids would be received by senior managers and board members. They also
described these fears as unjustified given the positive reaction to their new practices and the
express encouragement by senior managers and the Board to enhance the level of hybridisation.
This was confirmed in the interviews with senior managers and a board member.
“The Environment Agency and its Board want to push forward and reinforce
what is sustainable and environmentally friendly. ”
“…high level of support and confidence from the board in the EA for the
Connected Reporting Initiative…”
“Board leadership is important for environmental success in an organization.
Just as important as key individuals with personalities are and this happened
in the case of the Head of Environmental Finance who brought A4S to the
attention of the board”.
(Chair of Audit Risk and Governance Committee)
This positive reaction added to the motivation of the environmental finance team for the systematic
extension of the scope of existing accounting sustainable development hybrids and the development
of new accounting sustainable development hybrids, for example that incorporated life cycle costing
and/or supply chain carbon accounting.
In addition to publishing details of their accounting sustainable development hybrids in a range of
different forums and formats, Environment Agency staff actively participated in boundary spanning
networks in order to engage with others in the field and to disseminate their expertise, processes
and practices to others e.g. FRAB, A4S, and ACCA. Working with these external networks was
reported as influential in the internal legitimation and empowering of further accounting sustainable
development hybridisation.
Their roles as natural environment protector and sustainable development promoter appeared to
allow the Environment Agency greater levels of freedom to innovate and develop new practices and
processes than other public sector organizations. This was enhanced by their strategic choice to
demonstrate the feasibility of change on themselves before requiring or advising others to change.
In part, this did appear to be influenced by previous criticism of their activities and claims of
hypocrisy in some of their past actions. However, their perceived freedom to act was tempered by
statutory limitations of their powers and their perception of the wider social context. Environment
Agency staff interviewed stated that for the Agency to operate effectively it had to work with
contemporary social and political rationalities and governing techniques, even if they personally felt
that these may be part of cause of the social and environmental threats facing England and Wales.
Their approach was premised on pragmatic, feasible changes in the way things operate now rather
than some broader ideological, cultural or societal changes.
The elements of sustainable development that were hybridised in the Environment Agency shared
common characteristics with the dominant processes, practices and expertise, of the Environment
Agency. Typically these were concerned with eco-efficiency and, to a lesser extent, ecoeffectiveness, located within an ecological modern variant of sustainable development. Social justice
and equity elements did not appear to hybridise in a stable or persistent fashion within the
Environment Agency. Their adoption of an ecologically modern version of sustainable development
into their internal governing processes and practices could be partly explained by their statutory
remit, resourcing constraints and formal accountability requirements to the UK and Welsh
Governments.
Hybridisation appeared to be influenced by shared scientific processes, practices and expertise that
legitimating elements of sustainable development and the Environment Agency’s
regulatory
practices and processes. Most of their environmental regulations were established using scientific
expertise and regulations are monitored and enforced using scientific processes and practices.
Dividing organizations into compliant and non-compliant as a basis for disciplinary sanctions often
involved direct sampling of emissions and scientifically determining the chemical and biological
compositions of these samples.
Norms of acceptable emission levels, against which these samples are evaluated, were determined
with reference to the current scientific consensus on the risk of damage or hazard. The Environment
Agency's processes and practices are underpinned by an acceptance of scientific and calculative
rationality. They adopt an evidence based approach to the regulation of others. The scientifically
verifiable elements of sustainable development that corresponded with their scientific expertise and
availability of robust processes and practices were influential in the hybridisation. The nonquantifiable (when viewed through a physical science epistemological lens) elements of sustainable
development that fell outwith the Environment Agency’s statutory remit did not tend to form a
stable part of their expertise, processes and practices.
All Environment Agency’s staff interviewed were critically aware that what they were doing was not
sustainable development. They recognised that many of their hybridised practices and processes
were currently not yet sustainable and that further reform was necessary. In particular they
discussed the need to develop practices and processes to make visible and render governable the
sustainable outcomes of their actions, rather than concentrating on ecological housekeeping
practices, despite the considerable progress made on reducing their environmental impacts. For
example
“There is a drive for effective usage of resources in the EA even further for
example in the case of wind turbine setting”.
(Head of Finance)
“It is a good thing to be able to understand what your environmental
impacts are… to be able to understand what is costing you to be able to
deliver benefit and know-how”.
(Chief Executive)
The accounting sustainable development hybrids were seen to have been influenced by the
organizational wide hybridisation between and among sustainable development and the other forms
of organizational and professional expertise, processes and practices. It was apparent that the key
accounting staff, involved in developing accounting sustainable development hybrids were well
informed of environmental sciences and technologies that underpinned the Environmental Agency’s
processes and practices. There was an expressed desire to go beyond their internal eco-efficiency
successes in order to fulfil their role as the guardian of the natural environment of England and
Wales.
As mentioned earlier, the Environment Agency positioned itself as an exemplar of how sustainable
development could be hybridised into any organization. They had established processes ,practices
and expertise, for others to emulate and actively participated in boundary spanning networks. The
Environmental Finance Team actively engaged in boundary spanning networks to demonstrate the
value of accounting sustainable development hybridisation. This included engagement through the
management of Environment Agency’s pension fund, general networking, research projects and
involvement in standard-setting processes. The Environment Finance Team is also responsible for
the development of internal environmental accounting practices and processes. The Environmental
Finance Team philosophy is to apply the expertise, practices and processes of accounting to make
visible and render governable the Environment Agency’s negative environmental impacts and
calculate the financial costs and benefits of so doing.
“The EA gathers much more information that it is currently reporting in its
accounts. But if it wanted to use this, the data are there. So reporting could
expand in the future”.
(Head of Finance)The Environment Finance Team has considerable expertise in this field and is
externally recognized as such. They are also critically aware of the weaknesses in their current hybrid
systems. The Environment Finance Team are clear that their practices and processes falls short of
fully accounting for sustainable development and that currently they account for and report on
some of the Environment Agency’s negative environmental impacts. However, they have a vision as
to what needs to be done in the future and a systematic approach for further hybridisation. This
ability to critically reflect on their current accounting sustainable development practices we regard
as an essential element of any subsequent accounting sustainable development hybridization.
Environment Finance Team members in the interviews stressed how their accounting sustainable
development practices and processes have evolved through the systematic and robust application of
basic accounting expertise, practices and processes to the problem of reducing environmental
impacts. They also expressed a belief in the potential of accounting expertise, practices and
processes if applied appropriately to contributing towards organizations developing sustainably.
It was apparent was that it was accounting expertise, processes and practices that informed the
order and scope of accounting sustainable development hybridisation in the Environment Agency.
We observed that a prerequisite for accounting sustainable development hybridisation was
calculative practises associated with issue of concern that met the qualities associated with
accounting practices and processes. It also appeared important that the Environment Finance Team
were able to convince other functions and professions within the Environment Agency of the
legitimacy of any accounting sustainable development hybrid. The mechanism for this was cited as
the ‘business case’.
“Environmental monitoring and reporting is part of EA's DNA. The EA is a
special case in this context with high know-how continuously being
developed. The staff travel system is a good example of this”.
(Head of Financial Management)
One example of this accounting sustainable development hybrid was the set of processes and
practices associated with reducing the carbon emitted as from staff travel. For purposes of this
paper we will refer to this as low carbon staff travel system (LCSTS). Over period of approximately 8
years the Environment Agency has developed a set of hybrid low carbon staff travel practices and
processes that merged expertise from a wide range of professions and disciplines. These include
procurement, transport management, carbon management, air emissions, management and
financial accounting, logistics, management controls and performance measurement. The LCSTS is
based upon a set of decision protocols and metrics actively used throughout the Environment
Agency to reduce carbon emissions by reducing the need for travel and selecting the lowest carbon
option for any specific journey.
This LCSTS is a key process in meeting the Environment Agency’s carbon reduction targets, but it
also created greater visibility and awareness of carbon emissions from other processes and
practices of the Environment Agency. The LCSTS is credited with both reducing carbon emissions
and saving money. LCSTS is an assemblage of processes and practices from a number of prior
initiatives to reduce energy consumption and its associated emissions.
Over time the LCSTS incorporated developments in multiple disciplinary expertise, technologies,
processes and practises related to travel and transport. However, the scientific and political
consensus on the likely causes and catastrophic consequences of global climate change provided a
major stimulus for action in the Environment Agency. The LCSTS was not seen as a finished product.
“…So the (LCSTS) system grows on its own, because you are measuring it and
comparing the performance of regions”.
(Head of Finance)
There was a recognition for the LCSTS to co-evolve and integrate new knowledge, processes and
practices in relation to carbon reduction, accounting and transportation. At the time of the
interviews the LCSTS was based on manufacturer’s standard emission data on fuel consumption and
carbon emissions. However, the Environment Agency staff were aware that driver behaviour and
the type of journey can cause significant divergences from these standards and driver behaviour
management systems are available that makes visible to the driver, as they are driving, their fuel
consumption and carbon emissions.
“Calculation of average values on car performance and energy efficiency.
We try to promote energy efficiency in driving by adjusting to the computer
readings”
(Regional Operational Director)
This technology also captures detailed fuel and carbon data that could be incorporated into the
LCSTS. At the time of the interviews Environment Agency staff were debating the potential for
trialling this technology with a view to potential future hybridisation into their LCSTS. Other issues
that were being considered for future hybridisation included; life cycle costing, life cycle carbon
emissions of different travel modes, changes in vehicle technologies and alternative practices and
processes that eliminate or minimise the need for staff travel.
Accounting processes, practice and expertise were influential in making visible both the costs and
carbon impacts of the staff travel choices. They were also important in legitimating low carbon travel
practices and processes by demonstrating the business case through calculation of cost savings. The
different travel options were measured in terms of cost and carbon and, with the notable exception
of rail travel, there was a positive relationship between financial costs and carbon reductions. The
current rail pricing regime in the UK often results in it being the most expensive travel mode but
with the lowest carbon emissions. A LCSTS that simplistically incorporated the existing price regimes
of the different options (which do not incorporate the financial consequences of their carbon
emissions) could create a perverse disincentive against lower carbon travel modes.
This issue was
resolved by incorporating other costs/benefits into the hybrid practises and processes rather than
just taking the current prices. With rail travel, it was recognised that travelling Environment Agency
staff were also able to work and this constituted a clear benefit associated with the rail mode.
Therefore they adjusted their costs to reflect this, in order that the financial costs in the LCSTS were
aligned with carbon emissions.
While financial information was used to determine the travel mode hierarchy and decision
protocols, the financial cost of the travel modes was not an explicit factor in the options presented
to employees. The physical characteristics of each specific journey were considered the main
determinants of the most appropriate low carbon travel option. The provision of a financial metric at
the decision point was considered unnecessary. Financial metrics were critical to legitimating the
business case for the LCSTS in order to align the Environment Agency’s need for financial and carbon
efficiency but not always for operational decision making.
Once the journey was completed details of individual staff travel choices were captured in the
Environment Agency financial ledger and formed part of the regular accounting reporting practices
and processes, including disclosure in their external financial reports. Budgetary targets, corporate
scorecards, key performance targets and internal benchmarking processes incorporated staff travel
miles and travel costs. The LCSTS was fully integrated into the Environment Agency’s accounting,
management, procurement and investment practices and processes, rather than an add-on or
supplementary set of practices and processes.
There were other examples of sustainable development accounting hybrids in the Environment
Agency that were fully integrated into accounting practices and processes in a similar manner to the
LCSTS.
“Looking into CO2 emissions for transport that are then translated centrally
into financial costs. The same principles apply on water quality, and energy
usage in EA buildings”
(Head of Finance)
Accounting for energy use in the Environment Agency is fully assimilated into their routine
accounting practices and processes, energy usage data is entered into accounting systems
concurrently with the financial data. This has involved negotiations with power supply companies to
provide appropriate metering and invoices as well as investment in modifying accounting software.
The Environment Agency is working towards a similar approach to water and waste management,
but calculatively capturing the physical attributes of these issues is more problematic. Water
metering and invoicing systems are not as well developed in water supply companies. This has
required the Environment Agency to install their own internal water monitoring systems to estimate
water use and allocate water costs. The lack of a comprehensive and standardised approach to
water resource measurement is seen as an obstacle to further hybridisation. This does not mean
that the current water accounting hybrid practices and processes has not created greater visibility
throughout the Environment Agency and has considerably reduced their water usage.
Similar difficulties in calculatively capturing the physical dimensions of waste management processes
and practices have limited accounting waste hybridisations. Waste and waste management
processes and practices vary in terms of volume, weight, toxicity, recyclability, re-usability and costs.
The Environment Agency has many different waste sites and streams to measure, manage and
reduce and have yet to come up with an appropriate set of waste metrics. They do measure and
account for waste but less systematically when compared to staff travel, energy and water. The
Environment Agency are actively developing their waste management expertise, practices and
processes and seeking further hybridisation between waste and accounting once the quality and
reliability of waste metrics are considered appropriate.
“Site information exists to deal with environmental impacts at site level. Offshored and contracted out impacts need to be included in this. There are
good normalisation criteria (through the internal benchmarking processes
adopted from the LCSTS protocols) that are agreed and allow us to do
sectoral and cross-sectoral comparisons”.
(Chief Executive)
Accounting related hybridisation in the Environment agency was heavily influenced by the need to
legitimate the business case of adopting less unsustainable practices and processes, which in their
case required identifiable and verifiable cost savings. The business case representation was seen as
critical is the dissemination of these hybrid practices and processes to other organizations.
Accounting expertise played a dominant role in any accounting hybridisation. It was used to
legitimate, within the pragmatics of local organizational governance, these transformations in
practices and processes. Accounting expertise acted as a gatekeeper by imposing a set of prerequisites for other disciplines in order to allow entry into their domain. Unless the other was
calculable and verifiable in a way that met accounting quality standards then any attempt at
hybridisation would be resisted, temporary and unlikely to significantly impact upon the wider
governing processes and practices within the Environment Agency.
Discussion of Accounting Sustainable Hybridization at The Environment Agency and WSCC.
The accounting sustainable development hybrids identified in the two case studies varied in their
embeddedness in accounting and other organizational processes, practices and expertise. There
were also differences in the level of sustainable development penetration into these hybrid objects
and the integration of elements associated with sustainable development. Our analysis suggests that
the Environment Agency’s accounting sustainable development hybrids capture a wider version of
sustainable development that have penetrated further into accounting processes, practices and
expertise and are firmly embedded within both accounting and other organizational processes and
practices. In this section we attempt to draw out similarities and differences in the hybridisation
processes and organizational context that offer general insights into hybrisation mechanisms.
In both organizations key representatives were aware of a comprehensive range of sustainable
development processes, practices and expertise, however the extent to which this holistic
awareness of sustainable development was disseminated throughout the organizations varied. In
the Environment Agency awareness of processes and practices associated with eco-efficiency and
eco-effectiveness were widely held and a commitment to improving the natural environment was a
central organizational value that underpinned their processes and practices. The Environment
Agency possessed a high level of coherence between the different disciplines and professions
employed within the organization with a focused, clearly defined mission and explicit set of
sustainable development outcomes. There was, however, a lower level of awareness of processes,
practices and expertise associated with eco-justice and social equity.
In WSCC awareness of sustainable development was more fragmented and not so widely held. There
were pockets of expertise within different departments but these were secondary in relation to the
department’s main disciplinary processes, practices and expertise. There was evidence of a strong
commitment to developing sustainably but a reluctance or perceived inability to making it their top
priority. WSCC exhibited much greater heterogeneity than the Environment Agency in terms of their
assemblage of disciplinary processes, practices and expertise. WSCC could be characterised as
spatially determined in that they provide a diverse range of services to a defined geographic
community. Whereas the Environment Agency was functionally determined, in that they provide a
coherent range of services to a diverse set of organizations. The complexity and diversity of WSCC
functions restricted the dissemination of sustainable development knowledge. This resulted in
greater problems with establishing systematic commonalities leading to a lowest common
denominator approach to sustainable development hybridisation.
Representatives from both organizations credited boundary spanning networks for assisting in the
hybridisation of accounting and sustainable development and participated in common networks,
such as Global Reporting Initiative and Accounting for Sustainability. However how they engaged in
these networks varied. Crudely WSCC used these networks as a source of legitimated processes,
practices and expertise that could be applied to their organization, whereas Environment Agency
provided examples of processes, practices and expertise and actively participated in knowledge
exchange and creation. The Environment Agency used these networks strategically in order to
change unsustainable accounting processes and practices that they consider to be perpetuating
unsustainable practices. Representatives from the Environment Finance Team have a deeply held
conviction of the contribution that accounting sustainable development hybrids can make to
developing sustainably and prepared to commit their time to disseminating their processes, practice
and expertise. WSCC have considerable statutory powers in their geographic domain, including
issues relating to sustainable development. However, the exercising of these powers was sensitive
to the need of the political and social acceptability of their actions given they are directly
accountable to local citizens and democratically controlled by elected representatives. The
interviews suggested that their perceived ability to force others to develop sustainably was limited.
In contrast the Environment Agency has extensive statutory powers to change the behaviour of
private and public sector organizations throughout England and Wales. They are able to apply
powerful disciplinary sanctions including closing down businesses and criminal and civil
prosecutions. They are in a position of strength in all forms of engagements, including their
participation in boundary spanning networks such as promoting accounting sustainable
development hybrid processes, practices and expertise.
The Environment Agency has a clearly defined set of accountability processes and practices,
principally to the UK Parliament and Welsh Assembly, through their respective sponsoring ministries.
They also have powers to demand accounts from other organizations on specific aspects of their
processes and practices. As a Non-Departmental Government Body they are not directly accountable
to Parliament or their wider stakeholder networks. In this regard, they are subject to a different set
of accountability processes and practices than WSCC. However, the Environment Agency voluntarily
adopted an open and transparent approach to disclosing information of their processes and
practices when engaging with stakeholders.
The accountability processes and practices of WSCC are more complex and diverse than the
Environment Agency, which reflects the diversity and dispersed nature of services provided. They
have highly specified formal upward accountability, but in addition they have formal and informal
political accountability, democratic accountability and localised accountabilities through multiple
forms of stakeholder engagements. WSCC are enmeshed in a complex web of accountability
processes and practices that makes any accounting hybridisation more complex.
The representatives interviewed in both organizations were acutely aware of the potential
consequences of unsustainable development and expressed a strong commitment to sustainable
development. However, this did not appear to translate into urgent fears of impending catastrophe
or the need for radical transformation of their processes, practices and expertise. There was an
acceptance, particularly at the top managerial levels of both organizations, of the importance of
sustainable development to the long term future of their organizations, those that they are charged
with governing and the need for change. Sustainable development did need to be rendered visible
and governable, but not immediately. Hybridisation of sustainable development with their
processes, practices and expertise was necessary and desirable. How this was to be accomplished
was a strategic choice that balanced other issues, perceived as more urgent and more pressing. For
WSCC this was adjusting to a series of poor financial settlements received from Central Government.
The more explicit alignment with the Environment Agency’s statutory responsibilities and
sustainable development meant that sustainable development hybridisation was easier to prioritise
than in WSCC.
In both cases the lack of resources acted as a restraint to the legitimacy and social acceptability of
sustainable development hybrids. However, accounting sustainable development hybrids were
important in successfully challenging this social unacceptability and legitimating further sustainable
development hybridisation through rendering visible the business case forchange, particular in
relation to eco-efficient housekeeping. The challenge was how to move beyond this into making
visible, calculable and governable eco-effectiveness and eco-justice. The representatives of both
organizations were aware of this challenge and the limits of their current accounting sustainable
development hybrids. The rationing of resourcing, diversity and immediacy of demands on these
resources, political accountability and heterogeneity of processes, practices and expertise in WSCC
acted as a restraint on the degree of penetration of sustainable development into their processes
and practices. Despite similar concerns over resourcing, Environment Agency representatives had a
vision on the trajectory of further accounting sustainable development hybridisation that would
move beyond accounting for negative environmental outcomes.
Particularly in WSSC accounting did not ‘rub up’ (Miller et al., 2008) against or repeatedly encounter
sustainable development expertise or professionals, despite a clear strategic commitment to
develop sustainably by political leaders and senior. This led to a fragmentary hybridisation of
accounting and sustainable development practices and processes. These hybrids, while having
considerable impacts within WSSC, largely remained as stand-alone practices separate from their
accounting systems.
In this section we presented our empirical observations on the elements that influenced the
accounting sustainable development hybridisation process. While we reported these issues in a way
that suggests they were independent, the interactions and nature of their assemblage amplified
their impact. For example, if an organization has extensive sustainable development processes,
practices and expertise,
coherent
functions, clear link between mission and sustainable
development, collaborative inter-disciplinary knowledge exchange, internally and externally
empowered to develop sustainably, with power to influence others to develop sustainably,
adequately resourcesd effectively participating trans-disciplinary networks and held accountable
primarily on its sustainable development outcomes, then accounting sustainable hybridisation is
more likely. However, there are very few organizations that meet this profile.
Concluding Comments
In this paper we have provided evidence on the accounting sustainable development hybrids
developed by the Environment Agency and WSCC and insights into their respective hybridization
mechanisms. Both of these organizations had made a strategic commitment to become more
sustainable. The Environment Agency and WSCC recognize the need for an inter-disciplinary
approach that deals with the risks and fears associated with unsustainable development and in
complying with the UK Government Sustainable Development Strategy (DEFRA, 2005). The
development of their accounting sustainable development hybrids were seen as part of their
transformation away from unsustainable processes and practices. The accounting sustainable
development hybrids, in both organizations, had supported changes in the organizational processes,
practices and expertise and resulted in significant reductions in their negative environmental
impacts and costs.
However, the lack of comprehensive processes, practices and expertise related to sustainable
development in both organizations was a problem in these hybridization processes, particularly with
regard to eco-justice. Accounting was seen to rub against fragmented hybrids of other disciplines
and sustainable development, rather than a holistic approach to developing sustainably. In general,
sustainable development initially hybridized with other disciplines in terms of alignment,
commonality and lack of conflict with their existing processes, practice and expertise.
Accounting sustainable development hybrids were effective in selectively legitimating and
supporting secondary hybridization between other disciplines and sustainable development.
Accounting sustainable development hybrids were able to determine the costs and organizational
inefficiencies of unsustainable processes and practices, and calculate what they both referred to as
the ‘business case’. WSCC were able to use their accounting sustainable development hybrid to
make visible the link between wasting energy and the provision of front-line services. The
consequences of poor eco-housekeeping were made visible to others within the organization and
supported the dissemination of eco-efficiency processes, practices and expertise in WSCC.
Accounting sustainable development hybrids were seen as effective in improving eco-housekeeping
but they did not make visible or render governable all elements of developing sustainably.
The accounting sustainable development hybrids were considered to be effective in dividing ecoefficient practices from eco-inefficient practices, in determining eco-efficient courses of actions and
acted as a disciplinary practice to encourage and develop eco-efficiency within the two cases. There
was evidence in the Environment Agency of future developments in their accounting sustainable
development hybrids that could result in rendering visible and governable eco-effectiveness.
A problem remains as to how eco-justice and social equity processes, practices and expertise can be
assimilated into accounting sustainable development hybrids. In WSCC there was no evidence of this
hybridization even though they have considerable experience and well established processes,
practices and expertise in dealing with social equity issues. The exclusion of social equity from
accounting sustainable development hybrids creates zones of problematic invisibility and
governability and requires further research. The level of sustainable development expertise of
accounting staff and level of accounting expertise of sustainable development staff was observed as
an important factor to this hybridisation. Where both disciplines shared knowledge of each other’s
processes and practices there was far greater awareness of common elements that could potentially
act as routes for hybridisation. However, calculability of sustainable development issues was a prerequisite but not enough in itself for hybridisation. In these cases identifiable cost savings and
acceptance of the legitimacy of change by other disciplines and top levels of management were also
pre-conditions for hybridisation. This acceptance of legitimacy from other disciplines was in turn
influenced by the hybridisation of sustainable development with their processes, practices and
expertise. It was also observed that the diversity and coherence of disciplines co-existing within an
organization was influential in the extent and nature sustainable development hybridisation.
The hybridisation of sustainable development and accounting appeared to be dictated and shaped
by accounting processes, practices and expertise. We observed the application of accounting
expertise to solve the problem of unacceptable environmental impacts and unnecessary costs. We
did not observe any major transformation in accounting expertise, although there were changes in
their processes and practices. The accounting sustainable development hybrids reinforced the
business case for developing less unsustainably and in that way captured and legitimated a weak
ecological variant of sustainable development. However, other disciplines appeared reluctant to fully
hybridise with sustainable development and needed the accounting sustainable development
hybrids to legitimate further changes.
The perceived risks and threats from unsustainable development were not the most urgent
perceived risks and threats to be addressed, particularly in this period of public sector budget
austerity. Operational matters and financial control were considered more urgent risks to be
addressed. Sustainable development was seen as only one of many factors affecting public sector
organizations processes, practices and expertise and currently is not perceived as critical, in the
short to medium term. We speculate that this lack of urgency in dealing with the wicked problem of
unsustainable development will inhibit future accounting sustainable development hybridisation.
Accounting sustainable development hybridisation results from sustained, persistent, regular,
systematic encounters with local sustainable development processes, practices and expertise. The
absence of local comprehensive sustainable development processes, practices and expertise is seen
to be problematic and needs to be addressed though boundary spanning networks. There is
therefore a need for more effective sustainable development boundary spanning networks that
transcend organizational and disciplinary boundaries to enable inter-disciplinary, or transdisciplinary knowledge sharing and transfer.
Accounting sustainable development hybridisation is a powerful change process was observed to
produce significantly, less unsustainable outcomes but in itself cannot address the absence, lack of
power or lack of legitimacy of sustainable development processes, practices and expertise.
Sustainable development has structural dimension and it seems naïve to assume that sustainable
development can simply be layered on top of other demands and statutory requirements of public
sector organizations already governing other pressing wicked social and economic problems. The
current assemblage of the public sector was not designed to govern the sustainable development of
the UK and it is difficult to see how a solution will emerge without some degree of structural reform.
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