Critical Insights into Green Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Review

Abstract

Green accounting is a methodology that factors in environmental and social costs and benefits when evaluating economic activities and their impact on sustainability. Green accounting typically includes elements such as valuing natural resources, quantifying environmental impacts, assessing the social and economic implications of sustainability, and incorporating these factors into financial and policy decision-making processes. Research areas in green accounting encompass topics like environmental valuation methods, sustainable reporting and disclosure, the integration of environmental and social factors into financial accounting, the development of green economic indicators, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of environmental policies and regulations in promoting sustainability. However, there is little insights on the studies that has been conducted in green accounting domain. This study examines the domain of green accounting research by analyzing all publications indexed by Scopus. The research highlights the ongoing interest in this subject, starting in 1992 and showing no clear convergence patterns, indicating its continuous development and expansion. Sweden is involved in this research from an early stage and is actively participating. The “article” category dominating other types of publications, with a total of 69 publications. English is the primary language for the publications (96.43%), while Chinese represents only 3.57%. The article titled “Green Accounting: Cosmetic Irrelevance or Radical Agenda for Change?” by Owen D., Grey R., and Bebbington J., published in 1997, has gained significant recognition with 37 citations, indicating its influence in the field. Moreover, “green accounting” is frequently linked to the terms “sustainability” “environmental accounting” and “green accounting” which together reflect the key ideas of this developing field of research.