Sustainability accounting research at the crossroads: an integrative review of tensions, dark side consequences and pathways toward SDGs alignment

Abstract

This study critically reviews sustainability accounting's research tensions, unintended consequences and explores ways to align accounting practices with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The study reviews 283 empirical studies on sustainability accounting published between 2000 and 2024 using a PRISMA systematic strategy and analyses them through co-occurrence network analysis and the Antecedents-Decisions-Outcomes and Theories-Contexts-Methods (ADO-TCM) framework. The review reveals that sustainability accounting research remains epistemologically fragmented, methodologically conservative and weakly aligned with the SDGs. Existing frameworks often tacitly prioritize financial logics, marginalizing ecological justice, social transformation and externalities in governance. Although themes like circularity, stakeholder governance and technological innovation show promise, they risk instrumentalization without deeper theoretical and educational reforms and standardized metrics. Moreover, the field's regulatory and conceptual structures encourage symbolic compliance, greenwashing, disciplinary silos and exclusion of global south perspectives, ultimately hindering genuine SDGs alignment. The study draws largely on reputable journals and hence may unintentionally reinforce dominant academic hierarchies, marginalizing diverse epistemologies and voices from underrepresented contexts. These risks narrow critical engagement with sustainability accounting's ideological underpinnings and its alignment with justice, pluralism and the SDGs. The study calls for interdisciplinary curriculum reform, regulatory pluralism and inclusive standard-setting, highlighting the importance of dialogic accountability through the integration of indigenous knowledge and holistic materiality across policy, practice and education. The study combines co-occurrence network analysis with ADO-TCM integration to critically reorient sustainability accounting research for advancing SDG-aligned, justice-centered practices.