Sustainability reporting in Austrian and German local public enterprises

Since the liberalisation of markets during the 1990s, the pressure on public sector entities to demonstrate their performance in financial and non-financial terms has increased. Compared to the private sector, accountability expectations and obligations are higher for public enterprises due to public ownership and objectives associated with the public mission. While there is a vast body of literature on public accountability in general, a research gap exists when it comes to linking the general debate of public accountability to sustainability reporting practices of public enterprises. Thus, the paper addresses the research questions about the performance of reporting practices of public enterprises with respect to public accountability and about the state of the art of sustainability reporting of public enterprises in Germany and Austria with respect to accountability. Therefore, this paper combines two research domains, social and environmental accounting research and the accountability of public enterprises. The paper reports the results of a survey, analysing the reporting practices of German and Austrian local public entities in particular. Annual reports and, if available, sustainability reports from 103 Austrian and German cities were examined.