This study aims to explore how local governments transform their sustainability accounting and reporting systems to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how the practice of SDGs accounting and reporting emerges.
Informed by practice theory and using a qualitative research methodology (semi-structured interviews, document analysis), this study focuses on how SDGs management, reporting and assurance are established as a practice in an Australian local council.
This research found that SDGs accounting and reporting is emerging as a practice in local councils, with an internal focus being prominent. However, an emphasis on external stakeholders and assurance was predominantly absent, given that such practices are in their infancy.
The study, through a focus on a single, in-depth case study, contributes to an improved understanding of how organisations address the SDGs, adding to the academic literature.
This research provides a real-world example of how an organisation addresses the SDGs through its management and reporting systems, providing insights to practitioners and other stakeholders on such practices.
This study adds to the limited literature on SDGs management and reporting through a local government context and through the application of practice theory.
Introduction
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent 17 global goals and 169 targets to address sustainability challenges facing the world (United Nations (UN), 2015). These goals cover critical issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, gender, decent work, water, energy, climate change, responsible production and consumption and life on land and water (United Nations (UN), 2015). Given the criticality of sustainability issues, the importance placed on the SDGs as a mechanism for addressing key sustainability challenges, and the fundamental role expected of organisations in addressing the SDGs, there is a need for an understanding of the role the SDGs have in impacting organisational practices in relation to sustainability.
It is of both academic and practitioner interest to explore the progress organisations have made in addressing the SDGs and how these goals are incorporated into organisational practices. At an academic level, more research is needed to explore organisational responses to the SDGs and to explore how these practices emerge. At a practical level, it is vital to establish whether the SDGs are making a difference to organisational practices in relation to sustainability, what the drivers of current practices are and what are some of the challenges that are faced. While current studies have focused on various aspects of organisational SDGs, as will be discussed in the next section, there is an absence of a comprehensive analysis of the entire process of managing, reporting and assuring the SDGs, primarily because of studies having a specific focus on key SDGs or particular issues. A more general analysis would provide an understanding of the entire life cycle of SDG development in organisations and provide key insights into their journey in addressing the key goals advocated by the United Nations.
Sustainability accounting and reporting is a process that organisations can use to embed sustainability issues into their practices. This process measures and provides accounts of performance in relation to sustainability (management), communicates this performance to stakeholders (reporting) and assesses the credibility of the information disclosed (assurance). Sustainability accounting and reporting has risen to prominence over time, with organisations adopting this mechanism extensively (Bebbington and Unerman, 2020; Kaur et al., 2025).
Organisations can address the SDGs by embedding them into their operations through changes to their existing management, reporting and auditing systems (Bebbington and Unerman, 2018, 2020; Kaur et al., 2025), thereby highlighting their performance and governance (management), transparency (reporting) and credibility (assurance) in relation to these goals to their external stakeholders.
The transformation of sustainability accounting, reporting and assurance systems to address the SDGs is therefore an issue that needs to be investigated.
This study explores how local governments transform their sustainability accounting and reporting systems to address the SDGs and how the practice of SDGs accounting and reporting emerges. The specific research questions are as follows:
How are local governments addressing the SDGs through their management, reporting and assurance systems?
What are the factors that drive the development of the SDGs accounting and reporting practice and what are some of the barriers to this practice?
Local governments provide a useful context for this research as they are organisations that do not have the profitability motive associated with large corporations, have concerns about improving the sustainability of their local areas and need to be accountable for their sustainability performance. Prior literature suggests that the sustainability practices of local councils transition beyond a focus on their own impacts and require policy development and activities that should address the sustainability issues in their local area (Kaur and Lodhia, 2018). This crucial characteristic differentiates local councils specifically, and the public sector more generally, from corporations, leading to increasing pressures on their operations and a need for improved public accountability. A local council in a major Australian city, referred to as GoodCouncil to maintain confidentiality, is used as the case study to address the research questions for this study.
This paper is organised as follows. In the next section, we discuss the relevant prior literature on SDGs with a predominant focus on the local government context. This is followed by discussion of the theoretical framing of our study, practice theory. The research design and methods are then discussed, followed by a comprehensive analysis of the research findings. The penultimate section discusses our findings and relates them to prior work, while the final section concludes the paper and discusses our contributions, highlights limitations and identifies future areas of research.
Prior literature
There exists burgeoning prior literature relating to the SDGs. Such research has been conducted in numerous different disciplines, including, but certainly not limited to, urban geography (Fox and Macleod, 2023), sustainability science (Masuda et al., 2021), medicine (Morton et al., 2017), policy (Fukuda‐Parr, 2019) and gender studies (Gabizon, 2016). Within accounting, prior literature has explored how organisations report on the SDGs in their corporate reports (Elalfy et al., 2021; Lodhia et al., 2023), highlighted how governments can use the SDGs to create value (Abhayawansa et al., 2021), explored which factors affect SDG disclosure (Pizzi et al., 2022; Zampone et al., 2022) and discussed the reporting of SDGs by universities (De Villiers et al., 2024).
This section discusses previous studies that have involved both SDGs and local governments. In general, relevant literature can be divided into four different themes: how local governments can advance the SDGs or are assisted by advancing the SDGs; barriers and challenges to implementing the SDGs at the local level; research into the factors that influence SDG implementation; and SDG usage in local government plans and disclosure. Each theme will be discussed in turn.
How local governments can advance sustainable development goals or are assisted by advancing the sustainable development goals
Prior literature has suggested that the SDGs can help local governments by facilitating dialogue between stakeholders, providing a gap-analysis tool and providing a common vocabulary for discussing complicated issues (Fox and Macleod, 2023). Local councils can align their council plans with the SDGs, which can help them communicate how their local plans align with a global consensus (Pipa, 2019).
In relation to how local governments can advance the SDGs, prior literature suggests that one way this can be done is by fulfilling intermediary roles such as setting visions and expectations, creating networks and managing resources, assisting knowledge and learning processes and facilitating policy implementation and renewal (Masuda et al., 2022). Further, voluntary reviews can help “break down siloes and enable staff to assess the city’s progress and come up with interlinked solutions” (Pipa, 2019, p. 3).
Barriers and challenges to implementing the sustainable development goals at the local level
An excellent study into the barriers and challenges affecting the SDGs is provided by Bardal et al. (2021). They sent out a survey, which was answered by 132 individuals involved in Norwegian municipality planning and/or environmental issues. The survey presented respondents with a list of factors that might potentially influence SDG implementation and asked respondents to rate how much of a barrier those factors were to implementation. Respondents were also asked if there were any other factors that affected SDG implementation and how much of a barrier those factors posed to implementation. Further, Bardal et al. (2021) interviewed 16 of those respondents to obtain more detailed information. Noteworthy barriers identified by the participants included limited funding and capacity; a lack of suitable tools and methods appropriate for the specific needs of a Norwegian municipality; difficulty processing and dealing with the sheer volume of SDG information available; a lack of engagement or involvement by the entire organisation; and differing interpretations concerning what SDGs mean and how they should be implemented.
A review of the barriers that would likely affect the implementation of SDG13 (climate change) in the Hunter Valley region of Australia was conducted by Mortimer et al. (2023). They concluded that the critical problems were the limited capacity of local governments, the fact that targets and indicators are less explicit at the local level and the fact that SDG guidance is more limited at the local level. Writing about developing countries, Reddy (2016) suggests that challenges faced by local governments when implementing the SDGs will include ensuring appropriate governance and accountability; preventing fraud and corruption; and ensuring that data at the local level is made available to facilitate planning and monitoring. Finally, Fox and Macleod (2023, p. 529) identify three monitoring challenges as being “a) the inapplicability of the template indicators; b) lack of structures and capacity to collect data; and c) lack of resources to generate a customized framework congruent with the Goals”.
Research into the factors that influence sustainable development goal implementation
Using data from 34 Indonesian municipalities, Mutiarani and Siswantoro (2020) find evidence that SDG accomplishment is affected by region size, number of regional work units and presence or absence of own-source revenue. Further, Masuda et al. (2021) conducted a case study of how two Japanese municipalities attempted to integrate the SDGs into their policy decisions. They conclude that such efforts are assisted by fostering local ownership; linking existing resources with policy procedures; developing multi-stakeholder partnerships; and establishing vertical communication channels with both national and international organisations. In a more recent study, Raimo et al. (2024) explored the drivers of SDGs performance in Italian municipalities. They found a delay in the progress towards SDGs and found that population size had a negative effect on SDGs performance. However, multiculturalism, location in the northern regions and the level of tourism were positively related to SDG performance.
Sustainable development goal usage in local government plans and disclosure
Guarini et al. (2022) reviewed strategic plans released by 110 Italian cities and found that 19 of those cities potentially used the sustainable development concept within the plan. Guarini et al. (2022) then conducted a content analysis on those 19 plans, assessing if and how the SDGs were used at various stages of the planning and control cycle. They found that less than 10% specifically identified how they were contributing to the SDGs, and no city’s strategic plan contained specific SDG-related targets. Further, Meschede (2019) examined the websites of 15 German local government websites, seeking to ascertain how they disseminated information relating to the SDGs. Meschede (2019) discovered that the most prominently reported topics were education, climate protection, fair trade, energy and mobility. Sinervo et al. (2024) explored the role of the accounting-management nexus in fostering sustainability in 18 Finnish local governments through the institutional work perspective. The authors found that while sustainability integration was in early stages and there was heterogeneity in practice, there was potential for the involvement of the various actors in these processes to lead to an institutionalised practice over time.
An analysis of prior literature discussed here indicates that there is scope for expanding existing literature on the SDGs. These studies have explored the various aspects of SDGs accounting and reporting, with a focus on their management and their reporting, SDGs implementation and their challenges. In addition, these studies have looked at these issues in isolation, and there is a need to focus on the entire process of management, reporting and assurance of SDGs within local councils. Incidentally, the assurance of SDGs is conspicuously absent from the literature. The critical issue explored in the current study is that the entire SDGs practice (conceptualised through practice theory) is studied, from its management to its reporting and assurance. Our goal is to understand how this practice develops and to gain an understanding of the drivers of, and the barriers to, this practice.
Theory
The conceptual and theoretical foundations of this study are provided by practice theory (Schatzki, 2002). Practice theory explores how practices as structures of intentionality are constructed through purposeful human activity (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007). It has a dual focus on organisational structures and human agency and describes how practices are developed through their interaction, leading to organised human activity in specific contexts (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007; Lodhia, 2015, 2017). These contexts are referred to as site ontology, human co-existence being inherently tied to a kind of context in which it transpires (Schatzki, 2002, p. 467). Practice theory is used to explore how GoodCouncil transforms its management, reporting and assurance systems to address the SDGs.
The basic premise of practice theory is that practices are formed through the meshing of practical understandings, rules and teleoaffective activities (Schatzki, 2002). Practical understandings involve knowledge of how things get done; rules prescribe or instruct how certain things get done; while teleoaffective activities have been defined as the array of ends, projects, uses (of things) and emotions that are acceptable to participants (Ahrens and Chapman, 2007; Lodhia, 2015). Teleoaffective activities often focus on the systems in place (teleos) and the human behavioural issues (affective) that impact them.
An example can be used to illustrate the elements of practice theory. Sustainability reporting has emerged as a distinct practice in organisations. It is guided by a practical understanding of sustainability issues, coupled with an understanding of corporate reporting. While this practice is often voluntary, there are guidelines that provide some basic rules for such reporting, such as the Global Reporting Initiative. As this activity has become more sophisticated over time, there are IFRS standards that could prescribe how financially related sustainability information should be presented by organisations. Teleoaffective activities would include the management systems that are in place to capture sustainability information in conjunction with the impact of sustainability practitioners (and others involved in this process) on these systems through leadership and values. Combining these elements together leads to the disclosure of sustainability information: the sustainability reporting practice.
Practice theory has been used in prior accounting research. Studies have focused on management accounting practices (see, for example, Ahrens and Chapman, 2007), integrated reporting (Lodhia, 2015) and carbon management in Australian organisations (Lodhia, 2017). For this study, the emphasis is on how SDG management, reporting and assurance are established as a practice in GoodCouncil through an interplay of a practical understanding of this process by managers, the SDG initiative (rules) and the various systems and behavioural issues within the organisation that lead to a transformation of existing systems to address the SDGs (teleoaffective structures). Practice theory also enables an understanding of the drivers and inhibitors to SDGs management reporting and assurance within this organisation.
Research design and methods
Qualitative case study research (drawing on Yin, 2018) was used as the methodological approach for this study, as it is ideal for gaining an in-depth and contextual understanding of an initial, developing practice. Our focus in this study was to develop an understanding of SDGs management, reporting and assurance within the local government context and case study research was appropriate for addressing the research questions, given the emphasis on “How” and “What” questions, which emphasise the organisational processes involved and the behavioural issues at play. A single case study sufficed for the purposes of this research given the lack of literature in this area. Document analysis and interviews were the major research methods used within the qualitative case study methodological approach.
A comprehensive analysis of GoodCouncil documents on SDGs was undertaken. The focus was on the commonly produced and publicly available information. This analysis provided an initial understanding of its SDGs practice and informed the interviews that were subsequently conducted at the council.
Documents were acquired by conducting an internet search using the search term “GoodCouncil SDGs”. As a result of this search, we were able to access the following important documents:
the GoodCouncil’s Council Plan 2021–25;
the GoodCouncil’s Voluntary Local Review 2022;
The minutes of the 2022 Future City Committee meeting in which the Committee endorses the Voluntary Local Review; and
Opportunities and recommendations report 2017.
Semi-structured interviews were held with a number of key decision makers and operational staff within GoodCouncil to obtain the views of executives, managers and “on the ground” operational staff. Interviewees were given the option of face-to-face and Zoom interviews. Access to these staff was based on a snowball sampling approach where an initial contact was used to establish future contacts. In addition to the face-to-face and Zoom interviews, telephone conversations and email communications were used to follow up or elaborate on key themes. Emphasis was on how SDG management, reporting and assurance develop as a practice in GoodCouncil and establishing the drivers and barriers in relation to this practice.
Interviews commenced with an attempt to establish the role of the interviewee in the organisation’s SDGs practice. An overview of the SDGs practice was sought with an emphasis on rules, practical understandings and the systems and behavioural issues related to the SDGs practice (teleoaffective activities).
The key success factors for the SDGs practice were sought, while at the same time, challenges to this practice were also assessed. The motivations for this practice, the lessons for other organisations and the future of the SDGs practice were also discussed. Interviewees had the opportunity to raise any other issues that were of relevance to their SDGs practice and that had not been discussed previously.
The interview questions
Please outline your position and your role in the organisation’s SDGs practice? Who do you report to?
Could you discuss how your organisation manages, reports and assures its SDGs practice? What systems are in place and what role do various staff play in them?
Do you have specific rules or guidance for your SDGs practice? Are there any specific frameworks that you use?
What impact does the prior experience of ESG management reporting and assurance have on your SDGs practice?
What are the key success factors for your SDGs practice?
What are some challenges to your SDGs practice?
What are the motivations for undertaking your SDGs practice?
What lessons can other organisations learn from your SDGs practice?
What do you think is the future of both your SDGs practice and that of other organisations, especially in the post COVID era?
Are there any other issues in relation to your SDGs practice that you would like to raise?
Source(s): Authors’ own work
Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interview data and documents gathered in this research. Emphasis was on obtaining an in-depth description of the organisational processes in relation to management, reporting and assurance of SDGs.
Practice theory provided a conceptual lens for the data analysis. We focused on the site ontology, GoodCouncil and developed thematic codes around the elements of practice theory; practical understandings, rules and teleoaffective structures. Further themes were developed around the key success factors, challenges, motivations and lessons learned. We were also alert to any other analysed data that could further develop into themes and extend our research findings.
Findings
The site ontology – GoodCouncil
GoodCouncil is a large local council in Australia, located in one of Australia’s major capital cities. The council is one of 31 different local councils that are responsible for its local area. According to GoodCouncil’s Voluntary Local Review, the council manages an area of 37.7 square kilometres with a 2020 population of 183,756.
GoodCouncil was an early adopter of the SDGs framework. An analysis of the council’s documents suggests that the SDGs are fundamental to their sustainability operations. The SDGs informed their council plan for 2021–2025, and they produced a voluntary local review in 2022 to report on their SDGs priorities and key performance indicators.
In its 2021–25 Council Plan GoodCouncil highlights that adhering to the SDGs in their progression towards sustainability will enable them to benchmark their performance against other cities and make informed decisions on where to prioritise their effort, share success and learn from others. The 2022 voluntary local review suggests that all 17 SDGs are aligned with GoodCouncil’s existing strategies and plans, which often relate to multiple goals.
GoodCouncil has six strategic objectives as outlined in its Council Plan. These goals have been aligned with the SDGs in their voluntary review, as highlighted below:
Economy of the future (SDG 8, 9, 11, 16, 17);
The City’s unique identity and place (SDG 6,8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17);
Aboriginal City (SDG 10, 11, 16, 17);
Climate ad biodiversity emergency (SDG 7,8,9,11,12,13,15,17);
Access and affordability (SDG 1, 2,3,4,5, 9,10,11,16,17); and
Safety and well-being (SDG 1,3,5,9,10,11,1213,16,17).
The Council plans to produce a second review in the lead-up to its next Council plan. This review will reflect on what they have done, how effective they were and the subsequent changes that needed to be made, thereby informing the next council plan.
The discussion here has highlighted that GoodCouncil is in the process of developing its SDGs practice. How this practice develops in relation to its management, reporting and assurance is the focus of this study.
Practical understandings
The strong foundation in sustainability and climate action by the council enabled it to adopt the SDGs easily. This also enabled it to get unanimous support for the adoption of SDGs across the council. Interviewees mentioned that the SDGs were a “comfortable space for their organisation”, and committing to the SDGs is a natural evolution of their sustainability actions with the SDGs, enabling them to transition beyond environmental sustainability and consider social and economic dimensions of sustainability. In essence, while the organisation had a good practical understanding of sustainability issues, the SDGs enabled them to enhance areas that they were already addressing while, at the same time, looking at areas where there were gaps and that needed to be addressed by them. As one of the interviewees highlighted, “The SDGs enable us to look at all parts of the organization and the work that we do”.
Interviewees saw the SDGs as a “guiding light” for their sustainability actions. It was stressed that councils had a better understanding of SDGs and these were more suitable and applicable to their contexts. This is because of their roles in public policies and actions, moving beyond just their own impacts and having concerns about their local area. After all, councils are the level of governance closest to people.
GoodCouncil therefore used its expertise in sustainability accounting and reporting to develop its SDGs practice. It also used the expertise of two organisations to develop its voluntary review, which provided the foundations of their SDGs practice. These organisations were local universities’ research centres.
Rules
The SDGs were the overarching framework used for action towards sustainable development in GoodCouncil, one that allowed the council to measure and track impact beyond merely economic issues. SDGs were perceived as the most comprehensive framework available to have a common language around sustainability, enabling the council to connect locally and globally. Interviewees felt that previously, standards for measuring key issues such as performance, well-being and liveability were sorely lacking. The SDGs helped them to understand what they were doing well in and what they were not doing so well in and could improve on. Put simply, as highlighted by one interviewee, “the SDGs raised the profile of the council beyond the traditional remit of roads, rates and rubbish”.
The interviewees confirmed that the 17 SDGs and associated targets provide the foundations of their practice. The Voluntary Local Review guided how and to what extent the SDGs were addressed and was used in conjunction with their council plan, especially in relation to the alignment of their strategic objectives with SDGs. Voluntary guidelines related to specific SDGs were also used to provide “rules” for the SDGs practice.
The council has adopted the Melbourne SDGs principles, developed by the Melbourne Centre for Cities. These principles state:
Goals are consistent with the global framework, to provide a common language amongst local, regional and global stakeholders and partners.
Targets are “localised” or “translated” to suit the local context only where the global target is not suitable.
Indicators are selected with priority given to globally and regionally standardised measures to facilitate city-to-city benchmarking and learning.
The guidelines set out by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific also informed the GoodCouncil’s SDGs practice. The SDGs indicators were based on existing indicators of GoodCouncil coupled with external indicators from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Spatial Intelligence Network (AURIN), World Council on City Data, Carbon Disclosure Project and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Teleoaffective activities
The SDGs practice of GoodCouncil involved embedding SDGs into their everyday activities, rather than having this practice develop in isolation. The focus was on embedding SDGs into their operations and strategic positions once the commitment to SDGs was made.
The Council’s (former) CEO, who had a strong sustainability background, was the advocate for SDGs and ensured that the organisation transitioned to SDGs in 2020. This support has been reinforced by the new CEO, leading to greater alignment across various leadership levels in the organisation. Assistance was sought from two research centres in universities to start the SDGs practice as highlighted earlier. A formal commitment to the SDGs was endorsed by the council in 2022.
Four of the councillors of GoodCouncil have SDGs as part of their portfolios, while the entire council is reported to for SDG information. A steering committee provided high-level governance for the SDGs in the council. Furthermore, a specific position entitled “SDGs Lead” was created, and while this role was based in the climate change and strategy department, the person appointed to this role had the task of ensuring the SDGs were adopted across the entire organisation.
As discussed earlier, the voluntary review was the foundational document for the development of SDGs in the council. While the review was produced after the council plan, it did inform the plan in relation to SDGs, and the priority for the council was for the next iteration of the voluntary review to be further aligned with the next council plan.
SDG goals and targets are embedded across the organisation through various planning, budgeting and reporting processes with metrics developed to capture critical issues, referred to as their SDG dashboard. In some cases, targets were localised to the council context and new measures were developed. Any new strategies or policy frameworks had to embed SDG issues. This process is ongoing for the organisation, and the next stage is for them to involve the community and other stakeholders in their practice.
Capacity building in relation to SDGs for staff was crucial to understanding their role in delivering SDGs and establishing associated responsibilities. Innovation champions across the organisations were encouraged to embed SDGs into daily operations and to use the data better to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. The need to break down internal silos was crucial by bringing teams together, focusing on goals and targets and coming up with new ideas. A 90-day innovation challenge programme was used to improve the knowledge of staff in relation to SDGs.
The council had surveyed their staff in relation to the SDGs. All staff were aware of the SDGs and believed that they impacted their activities. However, there was a need expressed for guidance for these goals and to develop an understanding of localised targets, especially in relation to their daily work activities.
An interviewee stressed that they measured their performance against the SDGs not just at the organisation level but at the entire municipality, and the SDGs were a useful tool in this regard. This highlights the significant characteristic of local governments – unlike companies, their focus is not just in terms of their own impacts but also in terms of the activities and roles they perform, thereby requiring a greater emphasis on sustainability in their local regions.
Reporting on SDGs is comprehensive via the voluntary local review with an annual metrics scorecard to be produced each year. The review includes a narrative supported by detailed data. An interviewee highlighted:
We've given a strong narrative piece throughout the document and then had the data piece at the end, so we've tried to do both. I've noticed that other cities, either go really strong on the narrative or are really strong in the data, but they're not often doing both. We've chosen to do both.
Interviewees suggested that reporting on SDGs was very different from environmental, social and governance reporting, as there were no regulatory or audit requirements that they had to address, nor was materiality a primary consideration. It was about reporting on how they as a municipality were performing against the different goals. Even though a local council could not address all the goals, interviewees felt that they were ahead of corporates in terms of the breadth of goals they cover.
Interviewees also stressed that merely reporting was not sufficient and that it was about implementation and taking actions on SDGs:
I think it's not enough to just have the data and indicators, you've got to turn them into insights. So people can action them within their work area.
The ability to benchmark and compare was, however, limited, largely because of this practice emerging recently and the differences in terms of localised goals and targets. Assurance processes for SDGs were also in their infancy in the organisation, given that the SDGs practice was in the initial stages of development.
An area that the council was looking at to enhance its SDGs practice was to work with other councils locally and internationally that were addressing SDGs, sharing knowledge and ideas and working collaboratively. However, the early development of SDGs has made this a difficult task, especially within Australian Councils. This was certainly an issue that the council would address as the SDGs practice became more developed.
Key success factors, challenges, motivations and lessons
The SDGs as an initiative of the CEOs provided universal support to the commitment to SDGs in the organisation. This, in conjunction with Councillors’ support, enabled SDGs to be operationalised in the organisation rather than being a mere initiative of a particular department. Strong leadership and political support were therefore seen as crucial for enabling the SDGs practice to develop. An interviewee highlighted:
Think there's needs to be strong appetite to do to do this kind of work because it is comprehensive, and it does impact everyone in the organization to some degree. It needs to be long term as well. This is not a point in time project. But once you start this project, it continues on and evolves, there is a need for that evolution to occur.
This enabling environment was seen as a critical factor for the success of the SDGs practice. The partnership with the universities also provided rigour to the SDGs practice, especially because they were external to the organisation. Moreover, the SDGs provided the council with a platform for advocacy with state and local government.
One challenge encountered was that some of the SDG targets may not be applicable to the Council, as these were based on global challenges, and there was a need for further localisation of SDGs targets. In essence, some of the SDGs target require a multi-government effort and cannot be simply done by a council alone. The issues in relation to measuring and benchmarking sustainability performance were seen as specific to sustainability issues rather than just the SDGs. The need to understand sustainability data and evidence to make decisions was perceived as a challenge for governments in general, with some technical data being difficult to interpret. As mentioned earlier, the lack of councils within Australia involved in SDG adoption also made it difficult to work collaboratively with others and to provide leadership on these matters.
Costs and availability of resources for undertaking SDGs-related activities were also a difficult issue for councils. Some interviewees mentioned that in terms of the early adoption of the SDGs, there were competing priorities that needed to be addressed and it was not always clear how SDGs could be at the heart of everything they did. Not every division was invested in the SDGs, and there was a need to get consistent support at the executive level for the SDGs. Concerns were also raised about SDGs being framed as problems rather than combined with a vision for the future. Interviewees, however, felt that every division and team had a connection to the SDGs and it was their role to make sure these connections were realised and their plans were aligned to the SDGs to meet their targets.
GoodCouncil perceived the adoption of SDGs as a responsibility for them as a major capital council. Interviewees felt that the sustainability momentum was growing and the expectations from the public required every organisation to respond. There was desire to show leadership in relation to their SDGs practice in GoodCouncil, which was a council known for its social progressiveness and forward thinking:
As the capital city, there’s a responsibility but a sentiment I’ve noticed in this organization, that we will want to be cutting edge and we want to be exploring how to take action, in this very broad understanding of sustainability.
The ability to connect with other cities globally and learning and sharing knowledge was another motivation mentioned by the interviewees.
A key lesson stemming out of GoodCouncil’s practice was that organisations had to be clear on how the SDGs would be adopted – would the focus be merely on the council or was it something that was larger than them and required a much broader implementation to address key issues? GoodCouncil chose to focus more broadly and focus on key issues of relevance to their city and community, their entire municipality. However, while the SDGs were global and a good place to start, there was always a possibility of tweaking this for other organisations to suit their specific context. This was especially the case for contexts such as corporations and social enterprises that pursue different objectives from councils.
Another lesson was that committing to the SDGs required councils to develop long-term strategies and to operationalise them into their practices. Organisations would then be able to benchmark their performance and learn from their own practice. Interviewees felt that there was a need for connections among all tiers of government – state, local and federal – in relation to the SDGs so that critical sustainability issues were addressed. For instance, the voluntary local reviews could be connected with the voluntary national review.
Finally, the need to have someone oversee the entire SDGs practice in the organisation was perceived as critical, such as the SDGs’ lead role in their own organisation. The SDG lead remarked:
There needs to be a role like mine, where you are constantly putting that commitment in front of people to remind them so you can't just do the voluntary local review, submit it and get done. You know, you need someone that's got their eye on right how do we embed it? How do we keep it on the agenda for leaders? How do we keep it really current in front of mind, all staff are signing up or using the SDGs and can be a moment in time? I'm absolutely saying you need to be prepared to resource it become, you know, to help with the embedding and the capacity building, the advocacy, the outreach.
Discussion
This study has provided an overview of how the SDGs practice develops in a local council with a focus on its management and reporting. The factors that drive this practice and barriers are also discussed, highlighting the motivations for such a practice and the key lessons learnt from this case study of a leading local council that has sought to lead the SDGs practice. Qualitative research approaches such as case studies do not provide statistical generalisations but provide theoretical and naturalistic generalisations (Parker and Northcott, 2016). Theoretical generalisations involve a contextualised theory: the potential transferability of theoretical insights to other contexts. On the other hand, naturalistic generalisations involve the applicability of the research findings to other contexts in a similar setting in the current study.
This study therefore makes both theoretical and naturalistic generalisations. At the theoretical level, the applicability of practice theory to local councils has been enhanced through its use in this study. This theory has utility in exploring how practices emerge in organisations and provides an understanding of the intricacies of practice development through an emphasis on practical understandings, rules and teleoaffective structures.
GoodCouncil’s SDGs practice mirrors the prior literature findings of Fox and Macleod (2023), Masuda et al. (2023) and Pipa (2019). A lot of the emphasis was on the internal processes, embedding the SDGs into current practices and breaking down silos across departments within the council. The SDGs provided a common framework and language to address sustainability issues. A key finding from this study highlights how council practices differ from those of corporations in that their focus moves beyond their own impacts and addresses the needs of their local area, their municipality. However, there was limited engagement with stakeholders currently, with the local council seeking to develop the practice initially before seeking external evaluation. The emphasis was also on internal structures and management, as highlighted by the interviewees, with external reporting beginning to emerge slowly and assurance not being existent. Unlike Guarini et al. (2022) and Meschede (2019), this study finds alignment between the SDGs and their sustainability targets in GoodCouncil, while emphasis on SDGs was across all 17 goals.
This study also sought to establish the drivers and barriers to SDGs practices. While studies by Mutiarani and Siswantoro (2020), Masuda et al. (2021) and Raimo et al. (2024) have provided a more general understanding of factors that influence SDGs implementation, this study provides a specific understanding of the enablers of the SDGs practice. Strong leadership and support right from the top executives (and councillors) coupled with an enabling environment were perceived as critical for the success of the SDGs practice. Partnerships and working collaboratively with others were also an enabler for the SDGs practice. In the case of GoodCouncil, working with university research centres enabled their practice to initially develop, but there was a need to work with other councils, locally and internationally, which was somewhat limited because of the slow emergence of SDG practices in most councils.
The challenges to the SDGs practices in GoodCouncil echoed the findings of prior literature. Similar to Bardal et al. (2021) and Fox and Macleod (2023), costs and funding, the sheer complexity of SDG indicators and the extent of data required and internal resistance, albeit on a much smaller scale, were mentioned by the interviewees. Mortimer et al. (2023) also found the difficulties with localising SDG indicators and a need for a multi-government effort for addressing SDGs as found in the current study. Essentially, the SDG practices are slowly developing (Sinervo et al., 2024), but there is a need for funding (especially in a post-Covid world), support, guidance and further collaboration to enable the SDG practice to become a reality and assist in the sustainable development of nations.
Further naturalistic generalisations developed in this study relate to the motivations and the key lessons for the SDGs practice in GoodCouncil. It was evident from the interviews that GoodCouncil acknowledged its role as a public sector entity and its associated responsibilities and accountabilities. It aspired to lead the SDGs practice. Collaboration, learning and sharing knowledge were also perceived as critical motivations for addressing the SDGs.
The key lessons of this study that can apply to similar contexts provide a roadmap for addressing SDGs. Initially, there needs to be clarity on the adoption of SDGs with an emphasis on the role of a council and its coverage in relation to the entire municipality. Goals, targets and indicators need to be operationalised into day-to-day activities and linked to long-term strategies. Support from senior leadership and a specific role related to SDGs could facilitate this process, coupled with the breaking down of silos in the entire organisation to enable the SDGs practice. Benchmarking of performance and learning from others is essential. Finally, from a local government perspective, there needs to be an acknowledgement of the SDGs practice being a multi-government practice, with support and collaboration being necessary factors for the success of SDGs implementation.
Conclusions
This paper has provided an understanding of how the SDGs practice develops in a local council, a context that has scope for recognising the capabilities provided by the SDGs and applying them to address sustainability challenges in its area. A single case study of a leading council provides insights into the existing literature and to other councils that may seek to undertake such a practice.
This study provides theoretical and practical contributions. At a theoretical level, the study adds to the limited literature on organisational commitments to SDGs and how these are undertaken through their sustainability accounting and reporting processes. It applies practice theory to highlight how SDG practices are formed through the interaction of practical understandings, rules and teleoaffective structures. Practice theory advances the literature on sustainability accounting and reporting generally, and SDGs specifically, by emphasising how sustainability-related practices emerge in organisations from initial processes through their entire lifecycle of management, reporting and assurance. It draws attention to the drivers and challenges to current practices and provides evidence of the evolution and progress in current practices.
From a practice perspective, this study provides insights to various organisations and their stakeholders about how the SDGs accounting and reporting practice emerges in local government, the drivers of this, the barriers to such a practice, the associated motivations and the key lessons learnt. This has the potential to inform their own practices in relation to the management, reporting and assurance of SDGs. While focused on a specific case study, the key insights from this study provide naturalistic generalisations that can apply to other organisations. For instance, this study has emphasised the importance of strong leadership, collaboration and learning as vital for SDGs practice development. Moreover, an absence of an external focus on stakeholders and assurance in the current study also implies their significance for the success of future practices. These insights provide actionable implications that have the potential to enhance existing SDG practices.
This study focused on a single council, and further studies could extend this study to a number of councils to ascertain whether the findings discussed here apply to these contexts as well. This initial study could be complemented by a follow-up longitudinal study that seeks to gain an understanding of the SDGs practice over time. Stakeholder perceptions of SDGs practices could also be a welcome addition to the literature, and a need arises for establishing how stakeholders are engaged once SDG practices are established or, alternatively, whether they play a role in the initial development of SDGs. Studies of the disclosure and assurance of SDG practices will add to the existing literature and practice, providing an understanding of whether reporting is aligned with internal practices and the credibility of such practices.
