Disclosing new worlds: a role for social and environmental accounting and auditing

This essay critically analyses modern social and environmental accounting. First, I argue that modern social and environmental accounting models have been developed based on procedural liberal frameworks that limit the propos als for reform. Second, social and environmental accounting focuses on the corporation as the accounting entity and mistakenly claims to be able to in fluence it. In developing another way to think and act about the environmen tal and social role of accounting, I consider whether modern communitarian thought can enrich the democratic process. The aim is to foster debate and dialogue concerning the role of corporations and their impact on nature. I argue that implicit in communitarian theory is a democratic model through w hich language acts as a means to critically focus on the direction of accou nting as an institution in the public sphere. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.