Managing and Reporting Sustainability Related Performance
PostgraduateTAS-BFA7592025
Course information for 2025 intake View information for 2024 course intake
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Enrol by
- 13 July 2025
- Entry requirements
- Part of a degree
- Duration
- 14 weeks
- Price from
- $3,128
- Upfront cost
- $0
- Loan available
- HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Managing and Reporting Sustainability Related Performance
About this subject
Upon completion of this subject, the student should be able to:
- Critically evaluate various reporting frameworks and theoretical perspectives used to explain managerial motivations to report sustainability related information.
- Advocate the importance of a longer-term planning perspective for managers to attain sustainable development.
- Critically evaluate relevant accounting approaches to improve organisational sustainability-related performance and reporting.
- Analyse and evaluate the risks and opportunities that climate change poses to an organisation.
- Communicate information sourced from analysis of sustainability reports to a range of stakeholders.
- Week 1 - A consideration of the resources (inputs) used by an organisation, and the types of outputs and ‘costs’ that are generated. The nature of, and organisational accountability for, externalities?
- Week 2 - Measuring externalities in financial terms – the case of ‘full cost accounting’. Managers’ role in planning for sustainable development
- Week 3 - The ‘behaviour’ of costs. Nonfinancial variable and fixed costs Budgeting for non-financial (social and environmental) aspects of an organisation’s operations. Life cycle analysis The circular economy
- Week 4 - Life cycle costing Material flow cost accounting The incorporation of social and environmental considerations within capital investment decisions
- Week 5 - The role of corporate governance in promoting sustainable operations. Required qualitative characteristics of sustainability related information and an overview of various sustainability reporting frameworks
- Week 6 - Alternative sustainability reporting frameworks including a critical review of financial reporting frameworks as a means of reporting sustainability related information – Part 1
- Week 7 - Alternative sustainability reporting frameworks including a critical review of financial reporting frameworks as a means of reporting sustainability related information – Part 2
- Week 8 - Theories to explain managers’ sustainability reporting practices
- Week 9 - Accounting for climate change
- Week 10 - Assurance of sustainability reports. The role of counter accounts and dialogic accounts
- Weeks 11-12 - Some tools to assess the quality of sustainability reports
- Week 13 - Recap
Organisations create various benefits and various costs for stakeholders. Some of these costs and benefits – which can be of a financial, social, or environmental nature - can be quantified in monetary terms while others cannot. Managers have a responsibility and accountability for these costs and benefits regardless of whether they can be measured in monetary terms.
To manage an organisation sustainably, the significant costs and benefits generated by an organisation need to be measured, monitored, and managed. Society generally, and different groups of stakeholders specifically, expect an organisation to accept responsibility for the ‘costs’ it generates. Failure to manage various sustainability-related costs can have implications for the survival of an organisation. Among the many expectations of managers, an ever-increasing expectation is that managers will actively attempt to mitigate their contribution to climate change,
Employer groups, professional accounting bodies and course advisory committees have consistently highlighted the need for business students to be critical thinkers; to be able to demonstrate skills that extend beyond technical competencies; and to be able to demonstrate an understanding that organisations are part of a broader social system on which they rely for organisational survival.
This subject responds to this expectation, as it focusses on graduate self-awareness and applied technical and professional ‘soft’ skills in the following key areas:
• Provides insight into identifying the range of resources used by an organisation (including the use of so called’ free goods’), and the costs the organisation creates (both private and public costs) in doing so.
• Emphasises the importance of considering the lifecycle of an organisation’s goods and services.
• Explores the motivations driving managers to report sustainability-related performance information
• Explores the role and usefulness of various sustainability-related reporting frameworks
• Discusses the global problem of climate change and the responsibilities and role of managers in addressing it.
- Team Assignment (30%)
- Individual Assignment - Report (35%)
- Individual Assignment (35%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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Entry requirements
Part of a degree
To enrol in this subject you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:
Core
- TAS-SBS-GCE-2025 - Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business
Elective
- TAS-MPA-MAS-2025 - Master of Professional Accounting
Additional requirements
- Other requirements - Teaching Arrangement: Lecture, 1-hr Weekly; Workshop 3 times during the semester, 240 minutes
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
Related degrees
Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following courses
Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business
PostgraduateTAS-SBS-GCE
Master of Professional Accounting
PostgraduateTAS-MPA-MAS