The same question is provocative. This person who has studied accounting rigidly (I) felt like knowing nothing more than hearing the question. The presentation of the Final Degree Study carried out by a student from the Faculty of Economics and Business of San Sebastián allowed me to make a critical reflection on financial accounting. As a member of the tribunal evaluating the research, he was able to combine concepts that initially seemed incompatible: accounting and ecofeminism.

In general, it can be said that the purpose of accounting is to provide information on the results of a company or entity at a given time. In a way, we can say that it is a discipline that, reflecting economic activity, will help managers make decisions. Mathematician and economist Luca Pacioli defined, for example, the fundamental basis of the balance sheet at the end of the 15th century, and for the first time the dual character of accounting was defined: active and passive, that of the company (and quantifiable) and its financing path. This is a duality that is still learned in the first accounting, objective and with little room for reflection.

However, the economic activity of a company is not limited to markets, credits, losses, profits or debts. In fact, as has been pointed out on many occasions in the use of Gross Domestic Product to measure the wealth of a country, it is also up to it to account for the activity of a company as if it were alien to the environment and society. How would discharges and/or environmental pollution be reflected in a company's accounts? How can we account for the wage gap that may exist between workers in the company? What can be the indicator of work practice and decent employment? How to communicate possible inequalities or discrimination within the company? These reflections are not new and in the last six decades, in addition to the theoretical works, numerous initiatives have been launched on this topic. The so-called environmental and social accounting aims to reflect the impact of business activities on local ecosystems and on local society.

The subject has a wide range of possibilities. Because we must not forget that everything that is difficult to numb is usually under suspicion. Looking beyond the rigid box of the economy forces us to recognize the complexity of reality, and in this sense, in addition to performing rigorous theoretical supervision, the faculty student did a good empirical job. In addition to the excellent rating, he highlighted the courage to question the hegemonic thinking and we encouraged the jury members to publish the research work in some journal.

It was a pleasure for me when I heard about the subject on the radio, both the student and the professor who led the work. In addition to the recognition of the importance of the work carried out, the theme aroused interest. However, during the interview they commented that they had rejected the work of a scientific journal arguing that “it was not a scientific article”. The rejection of articles is very common in the academic world, but reasoning is certainly curious. In this changing reality, are the rigorous contributions from the social sciences to sustainability not scientific? Maybe the title was too provocative to talk about science.