Individual coursework 1 (worth 30%): Sustainability Report
Word limit: 2,000 words (excluding references and appendices)
Deadline: March 2025 (Friday of week 8)

Required:
Construct an account of the social and/or environmental impact of a chosen entity. Your account should draw not only from information published by or on behalf of the entity itself, but also from information gathered from other sources.

Specific requirements:
Your chosen ‘entity’ may be a corporation, but it could be something else like social enterprise, charity, public service organisation, or it could be a place, a group, or an issue.
It will be impossible to provide a comprehensive account of everything, so instead, you should identify and pursue one specific issue or stakeholder associated with your case entity that interests you and focus on this. This could include environmental issues such as air/water/energy use, biodiversity or waste and recycling, or social issues such as human rights, fair trade, diversity and equality, health & safety, consumer rights, anti-slavery, corruption, fair taxation, etc.
Your account should draw from a wider range of sources, including personal experiences, prior learning and classes, books, academic and professional journal articles, media articles, the internet, government regulators, professional bodies, campaigning and activist organisations, social media, trade unions, annual accounts, sustainability accounts, gathering a set of source material as appropriate. Reports should be fully referenced using a separate reference section. If required, additional source material can also be reproduced in an appendix.

The marking criteria for your report are:
Appropriateness and originality of chosen accounting entity
Relevance and justification of chosen sustainability issue/stakeholder group, including to the UN SDGs
Relevance and range of chosen sources
Scope and depth of source material
Presentational elements – structure, use of images and other media, interactivity
Appropriate and well-laid out referencing of all sources

A suggested structure for your report might be:
Introduction and Contents: what stakeholders and/or issues and/or allegations are the focus (including justification of this choice, with reference to the SDGs)
Entity governance, regulation and policies in relation to your chosen aspect
Entity reporting (where available/relevant)
Government/regulator reporting/sources (where available/relevant)
External reporting/media (where available/relevant)
References (all sources should be acknowledged in a single reference list)
Appendix containing further material or detailed evidence which you wish to refer to within your report.

Individual coursework 2 (worth 70%): Reflective Essay
Word limit: 2,750 words (+/- 10%).
Deadline: April 2025 (Friday of week 13)

Your work in producing the first coursework assignment will help you become more familiar with the practice of developing organisational and external accounts of social and environmental impacts. In the second coursework assignment, you need to consider the wider arguments around the role of different practices of accounting in achieving genuine sustainable transformation.

Required:
Critically discuss the notion that accounting can enable genuine transformation towards sustainability. In addressing this issue, you should draw on relevant academic literature, make sure your essay is fully referenced and illustrate your argument with relevant examples.

The marking criteria for the essay are as follows:
Evidence of understanding of the role of sustainability accounting and reporting, including in relation to the UN SDGs
Range and quality of academic and theoretical literature and other sources used to support the discussion
Depth and quality of analysis and critique in relation to transformational potential of sustainability accounting and reporting
Use and quality of specific examples to illustrate argument
Clarity of style/presentation: structure, language, spelling, punctuation and grammar
Referencing and bibliography properly presented according to given guidelines

The assignment has been worded to give you some freedom to decide which of the issues covered in the module to focus on. In other words, there are a range of ways one might choose to answer the question concerning whether accounting can enable sustainable transformation. However, there are some essential elements any essay will have to include – in particular, to draw on relevant literature, and to use example of organisation-centred and/or external accounts.

In terms of relevant literature, this might include:
Main theories: accountability theory, legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory, business case, wider theories (including radical, ecofeminist, etc).
Contextual material: sustainability and climate science, sustainable development, SDG’s, wellbeing, prosperity and inequality.
Areas of sustainability accounting practice: voluntary corporate sustainability reporting & standards, socially responsible investment and ESG, external accounting practices such as counter and shadow accounts.

We would expect all essays to include at least some material on each of these three main categories, but that still leaves everyone a degree of freedom as to how they wish to approach their essay. Here are some considerations to help you focus your ideas:
What theory or theories do you think best help to explain the key issues
What is more important to you, environmental or social dimensions of sustainability
What areas of reporting practice interest you
Do you see more potential for change in external campaigning and activism rather than corporate disclosure
Overall, do you take a more positive or a more negative view of the role of accounting in sustainable transformation

Some examples of possible broad areas of discussion might include:
Looking at the role of sustainability reporting as corporate legitimation, drawing on relevant theory and examples.
Exploring the possibilities and limits of accountability and how these issues might be resolved within sustainability reporting, with examples.
Critiquing sustainability reporting from a radical or ecofeminist perspective and discussing the potential of other forms of external accounting to bring about sustainable transformation, based around an example to illustrate the argument.
Looking at the SDGs, their role in sustainable transformation, and the extent to which corporate disclosure and the GRI standards address the issues identified by the SDGs, drawing on examples.
Looking at examples of corporate and shadow accounts around the same company or issue, to explore the differences in disclosure and the reasons for this.
Exploring the role of investor activism and socially responsible investment to contribute meaningfully to genuine corporate engagement with sustainability, and the role of disclosure in this process, with examples.