The Impact of Environmental Accounts During Moments of Socioecological Transformation

This paper explores the issue of environmental accounting. More specifically, based on an in depth case study of a company operating in the up-stream oil sector, it analyses the creation of environmental accounts within the organisation. Within environmental accounting, the object to be accounted for is nature. However, the precise form, demarcation and content – in other words the nature of nature – is open to interpretation and contestation. Hence the paper explores the practices of environmental accounting and, through the case study, analyses how the nature of nature switches between being potentially open to multiple interpretations and contestations, and becoming fixed. How the switch is managed is key to making sense of the practices through which nature is constructed. In this way, we can answer the following questions: How do sustainability accounts manage a switch between nature as multiple and nature as singular? What is the role of a “sustainable organization” in stabilising a concept of nature?