Environmental accounting and change in UK local government

Purpose This paper aims to explore environmental accounting in terms of long‐term societal transition towards “sustainable development”. Design/methodology/approach Accordingly, the paper uses an abstracted and generic framework of antecedents to “deinstitutionalisation” (the erosion or discontinuity of institutionalized organisational activities or practices) to analyse a case study of how a UK local government council is responding to an environmental agenda in the context of an array of gradual political, functional and social pressures to change its activities. Findings The findings of the study indicate how, in different ways, environmental accounting is pressed into use to promote such change. Originality/value Contrary to other frameworks which emphasise how environmental accounting is potentially constructive/empowering or captured/colonized, drawing on this case study the paper argues that environmental accounting may in contrast be mobilised to contribute to a process of deinstitutionalisation, even when attempts to develop such accounting are not entirely successful.