The essence of accounting under the sustainable development view

Abstract

About the nature of accounting, different people have different opinions in the academic circle. The classic theories mainly include management activity theory, information system theory, business language theory and so on. With the prosperity of economy and the progress of society, sustainable development has gradually become the goal pursued by enterprises and society. Under the concept of sustainable development, society's expectation on accounting has also changed, and only reflecting economic value can no longer meet the needs of enterprises and society. Enterprises and society expect accounting to provide sustainable value that fully reflects the combined benefits of environment, society and governance. Therefore, under the concept of sustainable development, accounting in essence should be a tool to comprehensively determine the sustainability value of an organization by measuring the input of economic capital, environmental capital and social capital and the value created by each of them in a special way. The understanding of the essence of accounting has also expanded from the traditional economic management system to a larger sustainable system.