Environmental Studies And Sustainability And Accounting
For this project, students assume to be working for a consulting firm that has won a contract to conduct a study of FLINT, MI to investigate their sustainability reporting practices and outcomes. Each student group will conducting a triple bottom line study of the MSA to assess the area’s accountability for sustainability performance as measured by its operations, policies, and the state of their environmental, social, and economic conditions.
Students are to collect, analyze, interpret, and synthesize census data and local government agency reports information and the literature on governmental performance reporting related to three different types of measures of MSA sustainability: 1) operational impacts from municipal actions and operations; (( That’s what I want you to work on… only number 1)). (Sustainability And Accounting)
2) local government policies and their effectiveness; and 3) sustainability outcomes measured in terms of the state of economic, environmental, and social conditions in the MSA area under consideration. (( number two and three are assigned to another students.))
Regarding the measurement of sustainability outcomes, students need to conduct secondary data research using census data through American Fact Finder to identify community indicators to measure community conditions. Once the community indictors have been selected and estimated for the latest year, for which Census data is available, say 2014, students then need to compare these MSA community indicators across time and location for meaningful interpretation. The time analysis, better known as trend analysis, consists of measuring differences in community indicator statistics using census data for 2000, 2010, and 2014. The location analysis involves collecting data to compare the sustainability outcomes of the MSA to those of the state. (Environmental Studies And Sustainability And Accounting)
A TBL study also includes conducting an analysis of the local governments’ public policy and their relation to sustainability. The study also needs to consider local government’s programs and activities expenditures and their relation to sustainability. This type of research involves trying to find answers to a number of basic questions, including:
- How are local government agencies in the MSA currently reporting on their overall performance – including traditional financial reporting and sustainability reporting?
- How does sustainability/triple bottom line reporting fit with other types of information disclosure and performance reporting currently used by local government agencies in the MSA?
- Which types of local government agencies are reporting specifically on their sustainability performance and why?
- How do different local government agencies vary in their approach to sustainability reporting?
- What is generally covered when reporting on sustainability performance?
- What are the key challenges for local government agencies when implementing sustainability programs, activities, and policies?