{"title":"Global environmental accounting and the remaking of the economy-environment boundary","authors":"Christopher Holmes, David Yarrow","doi":"10.1080/03085147.2023.2237350","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper analyses the rise of environmental accounting in global governance via a case study of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. We draw on recent literature that highlights the boundary between ‘economy’ and ‘non-economy’ as an important site of politics, and which establishes the key role of accounting practices in constructing that boundary. We show how the conceptual framework underpinning emergent global environmental accounting standards attempts to distinguish economy from non-economy in a way consistent with mainstream macroeconomic thought. However, and in contrast to existing critical accounts, we demonstrate that attempts to draw a clear boundary between the ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ aspects of the environment sometimes end up de-stabilizing that very distinction, establishing heterogenous notions of economic value that are increasingly inconsistent with standard national accounting practices.","PeriodicalId":48030,"journal":{"name":"Economy and Society","volume":"24 1","pages":"449 - 474"},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economy and Society","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2023.2237350","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This paper analyses the rise of environmental accounting in global governance via a case study of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. We draw on recent literature that highlights the boundary between ‘economy’ and ‘non-economy’ as an important site of politics, and which establishes the key role of accounting practices in constructing that boundary. We show how the conceptual framework underpinning emergent global environmental accounting standards attempts to distinguish economy from non-economy in a way consistent with mainstream macroeconomic thought. However, and in contrast to existing critical accounts, we demonstrate that attempts to draw a clear boundary between the ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’ aspects of the environment sometimes end up de-stabilizing that very distinction, establishing heterogenous notions of economic value that are increasingly inconsistent with standard national accounting practices.
期刊介绍:
This radical interdisciplinary journal of theory and politics continues to be one of the most exciting and influential resources for scholars in the social sciences worldwide. As one of the field"s leading scholarly refereed journals, Economy and Society plays a key role in promoting new debates and currents of social thought. For 37 years, the journal has explored the social sciences in the broadest interdisciplinary sense, in innovative articles from some of the world"s leading sociologists and anthropologists, political scientists, legal theorists, philosophers, economists and other renowned scholars.