Accountability and sustainability reporting in the public sector. Evidences from Italian municipalities

In the past two decades, the developments of the international issues have increased the need for means of progressing the sustainable development agenda, through which emerged the contribution of accounting through sustainability reporting (SR) techniques. Despite its vital relevance for the public sector, sustainability accounting and accountability does not count with extent research and it is still considered as an emerging field. This paper analyses, using the content analysis technique, the voluntary SR reports in a group of Italian municipalities, by comparing them with the latest Global Reporting Initiative (GRI-G4) guidelines. The analysis found a low compliance to the GRI-G4, with only 27,82 per cent of the items disclosed.