Accounting For Income in Business Sustainability

Abstract

Accounting for sustainability is one of the intricate research area due to the uncertainty of the subject matter, mainly because the obscure understanding of sustainable development (SD) definition. SD is defined, in majority of the literature, as improving the three integral pillars of society (social, environmental and economic) continuously to meet not only the basic needs, but also to achieve the maximum prosperity for current as well as future generations. The three main dimensions of SD, from the human life quality perspective, are: economic, ecological, and social (human). The economic criteria, from this perspective, could focus on the maintenance of a constant stream of income. This aspect of economic or income sustainability is one of the important measures of SD that can be achieved through the implementation of the concept of environmental management accounting (EMA), however, as argued in this paper, it is still ignored. By taking an overview through the literature of accounting for business sustainability, the outcome of this paper indicates that the majority of literature on the financial or economic aspects of business sustainability focuses on the cost side and how to measure it either in monetary units or in non-monetary units while totally neglecting the revenue side either for business, environment, or society.