This book, now in a new expanded and updated edition, proposes an integrated approach to sustainability reporting, the goal being to overcome certain limitations of the well-established additive approach, where the reporting of environmental, social, and economic issues is sequential, but separate. It argues that in order to successfully communicate its commitment to sustainability, a company should report on how environmental and social issues impact its way of doing business, namely its business model, contributing to value creation. Thus, a reporting framework for business models that encompasses sustainability is presented. In turn, a number of illustrative examples are examined to show how business model reporting could be optimally used to provide effective and integrated sustainability reporting.

This book also offers a broad analysis of corporate sustainability reporting, which includes a discussion of the theoretical background, an explanation of why companies provide sustainability reporting, a description of the current regulatory framework for sustainability disclosure, and a review of sustainability reporting literature that shows the main characteristics of sustainability disclosure practices.

This book contains a new chapter that introduces the concept of accounting for sustainability, focusing on how businesses can contribute to sustainable development and communicate their role through sustainability reporting. Another new chapter introduces the concept of accounting for sustainability, focusing on how businesses can contribute to sustainable development and communicate their role through sustainability reporting.

Given its scope, this book is of interest to all researchers and practitioners working for companies or organizations that aim to support, implement, and improve their sustainability reporting, by adopting a more integrated approach that interconnects environmental and social aspects with the economic and financial results via the business model.

Laura Bini is a lecturer in Accounting at the School of Economics and Management, University of Florence. She received her Master’s Degree in Accounting and Management and her Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of Florence. Her research interests are in the areas of corporate disclosure to financial markets, corporate social responsibility, non-financial and narrative disclosure. She teaches courses on both accounting and financial statement analysis.

Marco Bellucciis a postdoctoral research fellow in Accounting at the University of Florence. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration and Management from the University of Pisa and has been involved in several studies and research projects on dialogic accounting, sustainability reporting, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and non-profit organizations. He is also an associate editor for Business Ethics: A European Review.