Amongst the reasons given, the fundamental explanation was that the professional bodies of accountancy failed to perceive environmental accounting development as 'sufficiently important to accountants' current activities' (p.118). Similarly, Deegan et al.(1996) observed that accountants in Australia as a group did not respond to the increasing environmental concerns of the community (p.409).Moreover, regardless of the relevance of environmental disclosure in corporate annual reports, the environmental had not gained significance amongst Australian accounting standard regulators (pp.402-403). Amongst the reasons given, the fundamental explanation was that the professional bodies of accountancy failed to perceive environmental accounting development as 'sufficiently important to accountants' current activities' (p.118). Similarly, Deegan et al.(1996) observed that accountants in Australia as a group did not respond to the increasing environmental concerns of the community (p.409).Moreover, regardless of the relevance of environmental disclosure in corporate annual reports, the environmental had not gained significance amongst Australian accounting standard regulators (pp.402-403). Furthermore, study by Gray et al.(1998), which investigated the reasons for the insignificance of environmental concerns in corporate reporting, found that from an environmental managers' point of view, accountants did not appear to play a facilitatory role in helping the company to achieve its environmental goals, nor did they appear to be aware of environmental issues and their financial implications (pp.90-91). Although, on the one hand, this finding was rather surprising, considering the debate surrounding environmental accounting in recent years, on the other, it drew attention to the need for meaningful recognition of accounting change within the accountancy profession itself. This lack of recognition conceivably poses an obstacle for accounting in its potential function as an enabling tool for social and environmental purposes. Expanding upon these above-mentioned works which focused largely on a western context, this paper not only seeks to widen debate