Empirical review of local government annual reports in Finland: Considerations of sustainability
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: IMPACTThis article will be useful to policy-makers and managers in understanding how the sustainability agenda is deployed in the field of local government financial reporting. Local government authorities were found only rarely to present Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their annual reports in a regulatory environment where introducing SDGs was not strictly required in local government financial reporting. In fact, the empirical data from this study, consisting of virtually all Finnish local governments’ annual reports from financial year 2022, shows that only 4% of municipalities mentioned the SDGs in their annual reports. However, a striking 87% of municipalities presented aspects of environmental, social or economic sustainability in their annual reports. Practitioners could therefore incorporate the SDGs more strongly into their financial reporting, so that sustainability becomes a more integral part of the annual reporting.
Source: Public Money & Management
Authors: Jaakko Rönkkö, Mika Luhtala
Institution: Tampere University
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414333417