“Can sustainability accounting practices help companies to attract investment?”

Abstract

This study showed that sustainability accounting practices can help companies to attract investment. This study was able to demonstrate that there is a desire from investors for more transparency, sustainability (environmental, social, and economic) and ROI for their investing. Sustainability accounting was shown by this study and the associated research to demonstrate that sustainability accounting can help investors reach these desires, and as such help companies to attract these investments. The approach to conducting this research was an interpretivist one as this approach best aligned to the identified research question. The purpose of the chosen methods of research were analytical and exploratory due to the sentiment analysis that completed with the interviewees. A qualitative approach was adopted to conducting two types of primary data collection – interviews and surveys. The interviews were conducted over video call and the surveys were distributed through contacts and accounting forums / groups. The study identified that sustainability accounting practices are efficacious and if adopted by a company can provide to potential investors the transparency they want from companies when deciding on which company to invest in. It also showed that due to patterns and lack of widespread adoption of sustainability accounting identified, that adopting sustainability accounting could provide a differential and competitive advantage for companies when trying to attract investors.