Sustainability Reporting in Italian Local Governments: What They do not Report

SOCIAL ACCOUNTING AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT, S.P. Osborne and A. Ball, eds., pp. 192-202, Accountability for the Common Good, Routledge, 2010

Posted: 25 Nov 2010 Last revised: 2 Jun 2014

See all articles by Federica Farneti

Federica Farneti

University of Bologna - School of Economics, Management, and Statistics

James Guthrie

Macquarie University - Department of Accounting and Finance; University Of Bologna - Department of Management; Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School

Benedetta Siboni

University of Bologna - Department of Management

Date Written: November 25, 2010

Abstract

The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987) has argued for the importance of “sustainable development”. However, to date various studies have focused on corporate sustainability (Gray and Bebbington 1993; Elkington 1997; Bebbington 2007), rather than the public or not-for-profi t sectors (Ball and Grubnic 2007).

This lack of sustainability research is significant because public sector organisations should play a part in sustainability (Ball and Bebbington 2008). The public sector accounts for approximately 40 percent of all economic activity in western economies, and consequently has a “huge operational impact on the environment, society and economy” (Ball and Grubnic 2007, 243). Because of this impact, the public sector can make a significant contribution to sustainability by adopting “green” policies and activities.

Also, as a purchaser of private sector services and products, the public sector can use this influence to contribute to sustainability (for example, green public procurement, energy use, recycling rates). With an overarching mission to deliver public policies in the interest of society generally, the public sector has a responsibility to create policies that support sustainability (Ball and Grubnic 2007).

Internationally, social and sustainability reporting has been widely debated (Adams and McNicholas 2007), both within the academic literature and at a political and practical level. For instance, Adams and Narayanan (2007, 71) state that “the reporting of sustainability issues by organisations is an important part of the sustainability agenda”. Within this debate, the accounting and reporting techniques used are also central to discussions about sustainability (Unerman, Guthrie, and Striukova 2007). The various Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines (GRI 2006) are of particular interest because of their attempts to provide an international framework of reporting for all types of organisations. In Italy, a recent study demonstrated that there is a trend for Italian local governments to produce social reports, with 14 percent of municipalities and 38 percent of provinces producing social reports in 2005 (Siboni 2007).

This study aims to explore the social reporting practices in a selection of “better practice” Italian local government organisations and, in particular, to observe what has and has not been reported in comparison to the GRI guidelines. It uses an analytical framework developed in a prior study, in which the voluntary sustainability practices of a sample of Australian public sector organisations were examined (Guthrie and Farneti 2008).

The specific research questions considered are: 1. What has been reported in Italian local government social reports? 2. What has or has not been reported in terms of the GRI guidelines?

This examination of Italian local government organisations establishes that their stand-alone social reports are actually “social reports” in name only. There were relatively few environmental, social, labour, product, or wider societal disclosures when compared to the GRI guidelines.

Keywords: Sustainability Reporting, Legitimacy Theory, Social Report, Local Government, Content Analysis

JEL Classification: H4, H7, M18, M19, M41, O1, Q2

Suggested Citation

Farneti, Federica and Guthrie, James and Siboni, Benedetta, Sustainability Reporting in Italian Local Governments: What They do not Report (November 25, 2010). SOCIAL ACCOUNTING AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT, S.P. Osborne and A. Ball, eds., pp. 192-202, Accountability for the Common Good, Routledge, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1714973

Federica Farneti

University of Bologna - School of Economics, Management, and Statistics ( email )

p.le della Vittoria, 15
Forlì (FC), fc 47121
Italy
+39 0543 37 4660 (Phone)

James Guthrie

Macquarie University - Department of Accounting and Finance ( email )

Sydney - NSW, 2109
Australia

University Of Bologna - Department of Management ( email )

P.Le Vittoria 15
Forli', 47121
Italy
+39-0543-374-621 (Phone)

Macquarie University, Macquarie Business School ( email )

New South Wales 2109
Australia

Benedetta Siboni (Contact Author)

University of Bologna - Department of Management ( email )

Piazza Scaravilli 1
Bologna, Bologna 40126
Italy

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