Building on over two decades of research and debate, the 2026 edition shifts attention from ambition and expansion to implementation, recalibration, and contestation. While regulatory frameworks such as the CSRD, ESRS, ISSB, and emerging due diligence regulations promise increased transparency and accountability, they also generate new managerial, organizational, and governance challenges that remain insufficiently understood. At the same time, growing attention is being directed toward the scientific and epistemic foundations of sustainability governance.
A core ambition of the conference is to strengthen the bridge between academic research and organizational practice, particularly in relation to how intangibles, environmental knowledge and sustainability requirements are translated into reporting and disclosure practices, managerial action, management control systems, and decision-making processes.
We welcome theoretical, empirical and interdisciplinary contributions from accounting, management, governance, sustainability, and related fields. Topics of particular interest include (but not limited to) following:
Environmental Science, Ecological Knowledge, and Sustainability Governance
- Foundations and translations of environmental complexity into organizational and regulatory practice, including impact materiality;
- Environmental measurement, biodiversity metrics, ecosystem assessment, including challenges of commensuration and comparability;
- Scientific uncertainty, data limitations, and evidence quality in sustainability reporting, due diligence, and decision-making;
- Governance and management control implications of biodiversity, climate, and ecosystem-related impacts, risks, and uncertainties;
- The role of environmental knowledge, data infrastructures, and interdisciplinary expertise in sustainability governance and organizational decision-making.
Reporting, Regulation, and Accountability
- The evolution of the intangibles and sustainability reporting debate: continuity, change, and unresolved tensions;
- From NFRD to CSRD and beyond: implementation challenges, simplification agendas (Omnibus), and regulatory recalibration;
- Double materiality in practice: interpretation, operationalization, and strategic use;
- Sustainability reporting standards (ESRS, ISSB, GRI): conceptual foundations, comparability, and credibility;
- Assurance, verification, and enforcement of sustainability information;
- ESG reporting between value relevance, legitimacy, and greenwashing.
Due Diligence, Value Chains, and Organizational Boundaries
- Corporate sustainability due diligence (e.g. CSDDD): managerial, accounting, and governance implications;
- Managing and controlling sustainability risks across global value chains and ecosystems;
- Data availability, traceability, and the governance of sustainability information beyond organizational boundaries;
- Relational capital, supplier governance, and accountability in extended value networks.
Management, Management Control, and Accounting Perspectives
- Sustainability regulation as a management control challenge rather than a reporting exercise;
- The role of management accounting and control systems in translating sustainability and due diligence requirements into organizational practice;
- Indicators, targets, incentives, and performance measurement for sustainability and intangibles;
- Risk conceptualization, commensuration, and control related to sustainability, value chains, and organizational capabilities;
- Tensions between short-term financial performance and long-term sustainability goals;
- Digital infrastructures, data systems, and AI-supported sustainability measurement and control.
Governance, Context, and the Nordic Perspective
- Governance of sustainability data ecosystems and impact accountability;
- Responsible investment, sustainable finance, and governance mechanisms;
- Nordic and comparative perspectives on sustainability, regulation, and value creation;
- Public sector, hybrid organizations, and state-owned enterprises in sustainability transitions;
- Contextual and institutional analyses that challenge universal sustainability solutions.
The conference particularly encourages interdisciplinary and practice-oriented research, including qualitative, longitudinal, interventionist, and engaged scholarship, that advances understanding of how sustainability and intangibles are managed, controlled, and governed in contemporary organizations.
