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New Approaches to CSR, Sustainability and Accountability, Volume I pp 45–59Cite as

The Importance of Sustainability and Sustainability Reporting

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Abstract

In the 1980s, voluntary and compulsory social and environmental reports began to be prepared. Thus, it was understood that the global market needed reports that included not only financial information but also non-financial information. The economic and technological contributions of business have been criticized for causing social and environmental problems over time. Issues such as environmental pollution, resource consumption, waste materials, product quality and safety, employee rights, and social responsibility have gained importance. The necessity of establishing sustainability culture in the businesses was born. Following the business scandals, corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability have become important along with corporate governance principles. The concept of corporate social responsibility has gradually been replaced by the concept of sustainability, and instead of corporate social responsibility reports, sustainability reports have been published. In the sense of sustainability, business activities need to be reported with social, economic, and environmental consequences. Corporate sustainability, which is called business sustainability, deals with economic, environmental, social, and managerial issues. Developments related to corporate sustainability are also followed by sustainability reports. The episode consists of two subheads. In the first subhead of the study, information was given on the concepts of sustainability, sustainable development, and corporate sustainability. Under these heads, the dimensions of sustainable development, the elements and theories that contributing to corporate sustainability and the principles of corporate sustainability are explained. In the second subhead of the study, information was given about sustainability reporting in small- and medium-sized businesses, sustainability reporting applications, sustainability and accounting relations, and sustainability measures.

This study was adapted from a Ph.D. thesis which was named as “Sustainability Reports In Turkey’s GRI Scope And Proposal For Reporting For SMEs”. In addition, it has been supported by TÜBİTAK, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, under project number 215K361 within the TÜBİTAK 3001 Program as the project output of the study named as “Current State of Sustainability Reports in Turkey and Sustainability in SMEs”. We are grateful to the TÜBİTAK unit and its employees who provided scientific and financial support for the evaluation of the project application, its worth to be supported and during the realization of the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Black Sea Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey

    Zeynep Şahin & Fikret Çankaya

Authors
  1. Zeynep Şahin
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  2. Fikret Çankaya
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Correspondence to Zeynep Şahin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Trakya University, Edirne, Turkey

    Kıymet Tunca Çalıyurt

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Şahin, Z., Çankaya, F. (2020). The Importance of Sustainability and Sustainability Reporting. In: Çalıyurt, K. (eds) New Approaches to CSR, Sustainability and Accountability, Volume I. Accounting, Finance, Sustainability, Governance & Fraud: Theory and Application. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9588-9_4

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