approaches to supply chain management can support ‘good’ quality jobs that benefit local economies. A keystone actor approach seeks to identify transnational corporations who collectively have disproportionate impacts on the ecosphere, as well as on how an industry functions. SeaBOS companies fit this profile within seafood, as they catch a large percentage of the most valuable fish across the world’s ocean. A keystone actor approach, therefore, identifies groups of companies that are both economically and ecologically significant and seeks to create the possibilities that they might be able to collectively transform their impacts, and thereby also shape the possibility for change in their specific industry. But wemust go beyond identifying such a group of companies. Instead, we need to investigate howwemight work with them and other industry participants to address unsustainable practices. This desire leads to the idea of ‘keystone dialogues’, where science and business can interact to co-design solutions to the problems. Understanding ‘what works’ in this context is a project in its own right, and working in partnership with industry bodies provides insight into possibilities for organisational change. Of course, this is not straightforward: but it is essential if the best scientific insight (including that from social scientists) is to be brought to bear on changing the world. Research into corporate social and environmental impacts is often characterised as an example of seeking to enforce ‘corporate social responsibility’, with the desire to discharge accountability central to any reporting activity. Accounting and accountability clearly have a close relationship: most usually, accountability for the extent to which an organisation has acted in accordance with legal and stakeholder expectations is the standard against which their behaviour is judged. In a keystone approach, a higher standard of behaviour is sought: that of stewardship. Stewardship relates to the extent to which organisations act as guardians for the integrity of the natural systems they depend on and draw resources from. What stewardship entails (as distinct from accountability) is a somewhat open question, with the need to explore if (and under what conditions) corporations might be able to act as ‘biosphere stewards’. If we can instigate change in these large economic organisations, corporations that are connected to everything in their operational space across the planet, then you change everyone else simultaneously. They decide if there will be new purchasing standards, they decide if they want to talk about particular ways of being responsible, they shape what is considered to be a responsible business, and it flows through their supply chains and that narrative is widely applied. This is how we can apply sustainability science, how we can address these problems, and how we can make a global impact. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 29 Professor Jan Bebbington is the Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business and a member of the Department of Accounting and Finance. The Centre seeks to support the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement though worldclass transdisciplinary research to support the mainstreaming of social and environmental sustainability into purposeful business strategy at board level. Accounting and accountability in the Anthropocene, by Professor Jan Bebbington; Professor Henrik Österblom, of StockholmUniversity; Associate Professor Beatrice Crona and Dr Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, of the Stockholm Resilience Centre; Professor Carlos Larrinaga, of the Universidad de Burgos; and Dr Shona Russell and Professor Bert Scholtens, of the University of St Andrews, is published in Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: An enabling role for accounting research, by Professor Jan Bebbington and Professor Jeffrey Unerman, former InterimDirector of the Pentland Centre, and Professor of Sustainability Accounting at Lancaster University Management School, is published in Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal. j.bebbington@lancaster.ac.uk SeaBOS At the heart of SeaBOS is a series of commitments made by 10 ‘keystone actors’ in the seafood industry, who are collaborating in a science-business partnership to undertake transformational activities in pursuit of being ocean stewards. Their commitments include: Improving transparency (through corporate reporting) and product traceability; Engaging in concerted efforts to help reduce Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, and seeking to ensure that IUU products and endangered species are not present in supply chains; Engaging in concerted efforts to eliminate any form of forced, bonded and child labour in their own activities and along their supply chains; Working towards reducing the use of antibiotics in aquaculture; Reducing the use of plastics in seafood operations, and encouraging global efforts to reduce plastic pollution; Reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The science team is led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, including Professor Bebbington. They provide insight into how SeaBOS members could address the commitments, as well as undertaking detailed evaluation of how the initiative develops and its impacts). Find out more at seabos.org/about-seabos/
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