Accountability and Sustainability Reporting in the Public Sector. Evidence 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 do not count to extend 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 2013) guidelines. The analysis found low compliance with the GRI-G4, with only 27.82% of the items disclosed.