The “emancipatory” magnitude and the “credibility” of extinction accounting and accountability. Empirical evidence from the West European tissue industry.

We assume that environmental accounting and reporting has a strong emancipatory potential (Gallhofer and Haslam, 2003; Gallhofer and Haslam, 2003; Gallhofer et al. 2006; Spence, 2009; Gallhofer and Haslam, 2017; Atkins et al., 2018; Atkins and Maroun, 2018). In this approach, King and Atkins (2016) point out the key role played by accountants in contributing to develop tools that help companies in assessing, reporting and disseminating, as well as accomplishing, the preservation of natural species and ecosystems, helping to “save the planet” thanks to the emancipatory power of accounting. Few studies investigate the emancipatory potential of accounting and reporting demonstrating how an Extinction Accounting Framework can be operationalized (Atkins et al., 2018; Atkins and Maroun, 2018), supporting the development of narrative disclosure on extinction prevention. Taking into account these considerations, the current research seeks to provide a contribution by extending the findings described by Atkins and Maroun (2018) applying the same Extinction Accounting Framework in an analysis on an environmental sensitive industry, i.e. the tissue industry in Europe. The main research objective is therefore to explore how the deforestation risk can be operationalized in the accounting and reporting system adopted by four companies belonging to the tissue industry.