Conference Framing: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Sustainability Governance, Reporting, and Accountability

Here you submit abstracts that are not allocated to any of the special tracks.

The core of this track centers on how environmental science can be meaningfully integrated into governance, accounting, law, and management research. Attention is given to how nature-related data, measurement, metrics, materiality, reporting, regulation, governance, risk management, and management control can be developed in ways that better reflect ecological complexity and real-world decision contexts. We welcome conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions that constructively engage in interdisciplinary dialogue and advance credible, science-informed research on disclosure, decision-making, regulation, and governance.

Most relevant themes include (but are not limited to):

• Double materiality and ecological adequacy
• Governance and management control for sustainability and nature-related risks
• Sustainability measurement, data, reporting, and valuation challenges
• Regulatory and legal approaches to sustainability reporting and governance
• Recognition and management of systemic, cross-domain, and cascading risks across ecosystems, organizations, and society

For questions, contact Shruti Kashyap, Stockholm Resilience Centre: shruti.kashyap@kva.se

Over the past decade, sustainability reporting has evolved from largely voluntary practices into increasingly institutionalised and mandatory regulatory regimes. This track focuses on the governance, design, and evolution of sustainability reporting frameworks across jurisdictions.

We invite contributions that examine the institutional dynamics shaping sustainability reporting, including standard-setting processes, interactions between regional and global initiatives, and the roles of regulators, professional bodies, and civil society.

Most relevant themes include (but are not limited to):

• The political economy of sustainability standard-setting
• Interactions between EU and global regulatory initiatives
• Institutional actors and governance processes
• Enforcement, assurance, and regulatory oversight
• Cross-country comparisons of regulatory approaches 

For questions, contact Gunnar Rimmel, Aalborg University, gunnarr@business.aau.dk

This track focuses on how organisations translate sustainability reporting regulation into everyday practices, routines, and decision-making processes.

We invite interdisciplinary contributions that examine how organisations interpret, implement, and operationalise sustainability reporting requirements in practice. This includes how regulatory demands are translated into internal processes, systems, and behaviours, as well as the challenges, tensions, and organisational changes that arise in this process.

Most relevant themes include (but are not limited to):

• Organisational learning and change in response to regulation
• Integration of sustainability reporting into management control systems
• Data collection, information systems, and decision-usefulness
• Tensions between compliance, strategy, and organisational capabilities
• Symbolic versus substantive organisational responses, including greenwashing 

For questions, contact Susanne Arvidsson, Lund University, susanne.arvidsson@fek.lu.se

The purpose of this track is to critically examine the consequences of evolving sustainability reporting regulation, including due diligence, materiality, and regulatory simplification.

The recent EU Omnibus Package, which aims to reduce the burden of sustainability legislation in Europe, has become a reality. Its objectives are to reduce complexity and compliance costs, reduce the number of companies that must comply, and streamline reporting standards. At the same time, there is a growing push for companies to engage in due diligence and apply the principle of double materiality when assessing their social and environmental performance.

In this track, we encourage scholars to explore the reality of these changes: Will they improve corporate accountability to society and the environment, or maintain a reporting façade that distances companies from their social and environmental realities?

We invite contributions that critically examine these developments and their implications for corporate behaviour, governance, and reporting practices, including tensions, trade-offs, and unintended consequences.

Most relevant themes include (but are not limited to):

• Implications of regulatory simplification and burden reduction
• Implementation of the double materiality principle
• Due diligence as a governance practice
• Symbolic versus substantive compliance
• Unintended consequences of regulatory change 

For questions, contact John Dumay, Macquarie University, john.dumay@mq.edu.au

This track focuses on governance, valuation, and reporting of IPR assets from both an economic and a legal perspective.

We invite contributions that examine how intellectual property rights are governed, valued, and disclosed, and how legal frameworks and governance structures shape their role in corporate strategy, reporting practices, and broader value creation.

Most relevant themes include (but are not limited to):

• Governance and disclosure of intellectual property rights
• Valuation and accounting for IPR assets
• Legal frameworks shaping IPR reporting
• The role of IPR in corporate strategy and sustainability
• Interactions between narrative disclosures and quantitative reporting

For questions, contact Janice Denoncourt, University of Greenwich,  janice.denoncourt@hotmail.co.uk