The Performativity of Sustainability Accounting Under a Reporting Mandate
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2025-07-10
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en
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Sustainability accounting is a tool that has been proposed to transform organizations towards a more sustainable way of doing business and to increase accountability for the environmental and social impact organizations have through their activities. In this context, the notion of performativity is often used. The performativity of accounting entails the concept that accounting functions as a mediating factor in translating economic theory to practice and has constitutive and transformative features. Drawing on the concept of performativity this paper will present a case study of ASR, a stock-listed Dutch insurance firm, which had to comply with the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). Through a discourse analysis of publications (2013-2023) from different actors in the case of ASR the study identifies a shift of ASR towards an economic frame with a strong emphasis on sustainability. Conditions which contributed to sustainability accounting becoming performative and indications of potential overflowing of the sustainability frame are identified as well.
Keywords: Performativity, Sustainability accounting, Reporting mandate, performative tendencies, Non-Financial Reporting Directive, NFRD
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen