Measuring sustainability - On the creation of manageable and reportable objects in the context of sustainability accounting

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the process of developing two sustainability targets in a global corporation, and the measurement and reporting apparatus surrounding them. Through a comparative case study and an application of actor-network theory (ANT), it aims to explore the construction of manageable and reportable objects in the context of sustainability accounting. Basing the analysis on a framework by Callon and Muniesa (2005) and the concepts of objectification and singularization, this study finds that the construction of manageable and reportable objects required major investment in sociomaterial arrangements, since these same arrangements were under constant influence from external sources. Its main contribution to the sustainability accounting discourse is that measurability, generally regarded as problematic in the setting of sustainability accounting, can be understood as the result of investment and effort rather than as an essential characteristic. From a practitioner's perspective, establishing targets within sustainability accounting as well as accounting in general is just as much an issue of enrolling important organizational actors, as it is an issue of constructing the "perfect" definition and measurement.