Social Accounting – Australian Stories from a Social Accounting Practitioner

Holdaway MG¹*

1. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Economics as a stand-alone measure of success is a looming threat to the earth’s survival. However, the push toward sustainability, until now on the sidelines, could, if taken seriously, offer a more optimistic future for the planet.

One aspect of this push is evidenced in countries such as the United Kingdom. Here, over the last 15–20 years, methods have been developing to systematically assess and further activities that balance the economic with the social and environmental. Shorthand terms for these methods that share basic similarities are ‘social auditing’, ‘triple bottom line accounting or ‘TBL’’, and ‘social and ethical accounting’. In Australia there is confusion about what exactly these concepts mean ‘on the ground’, and about which of the growing number of approaches are most likely to lead to sustainability.

In reality, these accounting, auditing and reporting methods require a plethora of tasks, and the work has a ‘yeoman-like’ quality. A ‘social accounting’ practitioner tells her experience of using a social accounting model commonly used in the United Kingdom within the social enterprise sector. This model is also applicable to the business sector. She tells the story of Maleny Credit Union’s early experience of ‘growing an audit’, as well as her experiences of working with other Queensland based organisations committed to social accounting.

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