Systematic Review of Emerging Trends and Developments in Sustainability Accounting

This systematic review examines how sustainability is utilized by government institutions in reporting and tracking social and environmental impacts. As a result of the Prisma 2020 guidelines, we examined 84 papers published between 2009 and December 2024 and identified four key themes: sustainability reporting procedures, social re-management, incorporating sustainability into decision-making, and stakeholder engagement. The findings suggest significant reporting gaps in the public sector and the need for better systems and practices. This study emphasizes both theoretical and practical consequences, and it recommends strengthening transparency and responsibility, evolving the role of sustainability accounting in public institutions. It also identifies critical areas to address in future research, ensuring the alignment of public sector objectives. This study—by including difficulties in reporting and visualizing how accounting practices can be developed toward sustainability—contributes findings on sustainability can be used to improve governance and accountability in the public sector. However, a limitation is that this review only relies on the Web of Science (WoS) database, which can affect the comprehensiveness of our findings. Potential omissions of relevant databases, such as Scopus or Google Scholar, should be noted, and future research could be enhanced with the addition of a wider range of resources for more comprehensive analysis.