Making the invisibles visible: Including animals in sustainability (and) accounting

Eija Vinnari; Markus Vinnari

doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102324

Making the invisibles visible: Including animals in sustainability (and) accounting

Eija Vinnari^*
, Markus Vinnari

^*Corresponding author for this work

Administrative Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

54 Citations (Scopus)

39 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In this essay we draw attention to a crisis that touches upon a great number of individuals: the plight of non-human animals. Billions of farmed animals are slaughtered each year to produce for instance food and clothes, while wild animals experience various degrees of human-induced harms. Yet, non-human animals are largely invisible in discussions of sustainability and associated accounting efforts. This is due to a problematic ontology that leaves domesticated animals hovering between society and nature while grouping wild animals with their habitats and inanimate things. Our purpose is to consider how to make animals visible in sustainability (and) accounting. To that end, we first illustrate how sociology and philosophy, among other disciplines, have begun to shift towards the view that non-human animals are worthy of our moral, political and legal consideration. We then develop a view of sustainability that explicitly includes animals and introduce an accounting framework with examples of indicators to track progress from no rights to fundamental rights for non-human animals.

Original language	English
Article number	102324
Journal	Critical Perspectives on Accounting
Volume	82
Early online date	7 May 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102324
Publication status	Published - 28 Feb 2022
Publication type	A1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

A previous version of this paper was presented at the Accounting and Management Control department’s virtual research seminar, ESSEC Business School, in November 2020. The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments received from the seminar participants as well as the helpful advice offered by the editors and reviewers of this journal. Eija Vinnari wishes to thank the Academy of Finland for supporting this research as part of a funded project on “Constructing accountability in business-stakeholder relationships: the role of CSR communication”, research grant 324215. Markus Vinnari wishes to thank the Academy of Finland for supporting this research as part of a funded project on “Politics, practices and the transformative potential of sustainable diets (POPRASUS)”, research grant 296702.

Keywords

Animal rights
Animal welfare
Indicators
Sustainability

Publication forum classification

Publication forum level 2

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Accounting
Finance
Sociology and Political Science
Information Systems and Management

Access to Document

10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102324Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

1-s2.0-S1045235421000435-main-1
CC BY-NC-ND
Final published version, 335 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202106246065Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "In this essay we draw attention to a crisis that touches upon a great number of individuals: the plight of non-human animals. Billions of farmed animals are slaughtered each year to produce for instance food and clothes, while wild animals experience various degrees of human-induced harms. Yet, non-human animals are largely invisible in discussions of sustainability and associated accounting efforts. This is due to a problematic ontology that leaves domesticated animals hovering between society and nature while grouping wild animals with their habitats and inanimate things. Our purpose is to consider how to make animals visible in sustainability (and) accounting. To that end, we first illustrate how sociology and philosophy, among other disciplines, have begun to shift towards the view that non-human animals are worthy of our moral, political and legal consideration. We then develop a view of sustainability that explicitly includes animals and introduce an accounting framework with examples of indicators to track progress from no rights to fundamental rights for non-human animals.",

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Making the invisibles visible: Including animals in sustainability (and) accounting

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Publication forum classification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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