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Accountability and Sustainability Reporting in the Public Sector. Evidence from Italian Municipalities

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CSR and Sustainability in the Public Sector

Abstract

In the past two decades, the developments of the international issues have increased the need for means of progressing the sustainable development agenda, through which emerged the contribution of accounting through sustainability reporting (SR) techniques. Despite its vital relevance for the public sector, sustainability accounting and accountability do not count to extend research and it is still considered as an emerging field. This paper analyses, using the content analysis technique, the voluntary SR reports in a group of Italian municipalities, by comparing them with the latest Global Reporting Initiative (GRI-G4 2013) guidelines. The analysis found low compliance with the GRI-G4, with only 27.82% of the items disclosed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It should be noted that the G4 Guidelines have been superseded by the GRI Standards, released on 19 October 2016. The use of the GRI Standards will be required for all reports or other materials published on or after 1 July 2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Management, Institution, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy

    Fabiana Roberto, Roberto Maglio & Andrea Rey

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  1. Fabiana Roberto
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Correspondence to Fabiana Roberto .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business and Law, De Montford University, Leicester, UK

    David Crowther

  2. University of Derby, Derby, UK

    Shahla Seifi

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Roberto, F., Maglio, R., Rey, A. (2020). Accountability and Sustainability Reporting in the Public Sector. Evidence from Italian Municipalities. In: Crowther, D., Seifi, S. (eds) CSR and Sustainability in the Public Sector. Approaches to Global Sustainability, Markets, and Governance. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6366-9_2

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