Hybrid governance and performances of environmental accounting

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

卷:284

Article

Ghosh, Ritwick¹  Wolf, Steven² 

[1] NYU, 285 Mercer,9th Floor, New York, NY 10003 USA

[2] Cornell Univ, 121 Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

关键词: Environmental governance;    Agriculture;    Accounting;    Metrics;    Climate change;    Accountability;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.111995

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Multiple centers of authority in hybrid forms create conditions of radical openness where questions of value and fitness are in flux. Environmental accounting is suggested as a condition for steadying hybrid forms and opening up possibilities for institutional innovations. This paper advances a critical social science analysis of environmental accounting to help specify how, when, and in what ways strengthening accounting capacity advances hybrid governance. Social studies of accounting argue that accounting systems are contingent on institutions: rules and social conventions, not only data or science. Our practice-centered analysis of two cases of building environmental accounting tools to advance high profile institutional innovations in US agri-environmental governance finds that the systems of rules that structure and legitimize accounting protocols are not pregiven. The same radical openness that presents opportunities for hybridity also reinforces uncertainties in building accounting standards. We identify two major frictions: a) Conventions for determining technical consensus and b) Rules for determining levels of transaction costs. We conclude by identifying a need to think about hybrid forms critically. Although hybrid forms are an expression of creativity and collaboration, they are also performances of a certain contemporary political covenant that delegitimizes state-centered governance. The challenge ahead is to understand when and where hybrid arrangements add to socio-ecological regulation and where they undermine the possibility of more functional approaches through a performance of seriousness.

【 授权许可】

Free