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Accounting inscription in social significance: A case study of a biodiversity

conservation project to connecting Borneo and Japan

Yan Li*

Takushoku University

Ayako Sendo

Takushoku University

* Corresponding author: Phone: +81 3947-6449, E-mail: liyan@ner.takushoku-u.ac.jp

Abstract

This research explores the social significance of accounting by studying how the latter is

implicated in the design and implementation of a biodiversity conservation plan ("Green Corridor

Plan") in Borneo, Malaysia. The plan is implemented by a NGO that collect donation from Japanese

participants to purchase lands to connect sanctuaries and forest reserves located in the downstream of

Borneo Kinabatangan River, to enable wildlife free movement. By doing this, the ultimate purpose of

the plan is to build symbiotic relationship between economic development and environment protection.

In order to understand what is accounting’s role in that socially significant process, we take the concept

of “inscription” as our theoretical framework. Since Robson (1992), the arena of “accounting

inscriptions action on distance” have been formed and developed over 30 years. Inspired by theses

research, we view the “Green Corridor Plan” itself and other various devices used by the NGO to

implement the plan as “inscriptions”, and explore how these inscriptions have acted at distance to

mediate the connection from Borneo to Japan. Our findings suggest that the social as well as material

aspects of the inscriptions, coincided with donation companies’ responsibility and business philosophy,

indeed make it possible to connect Borneo environmental issue with long distant Japanese participants.

Despite this power, some difficulties inherent in long distance were still hard to overcome while the

plan was operating. These distance include not only geographical but also more fundamental that come

from cultural and economic conditions.

Key words: accounting inscription, distance, mediating instrument, case study

(This is early work. Please do not quote without permission from the authors.)

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1. Introduction

Forty years ago, the pioneering research of Burchell et al.,(1980) and Burchell et al.,(1985) called

for that accounting research should take more focus on the role of accounting as organizational and

social practice rather than a purely neutral tool. After that, the need to investigate the social roles of

accounting, the social significance of accounting, and how changing social developments and values

impacted on accounting thought and practice, were also emphasized (Walker 2016). Also, the AOS

(2018, No.67)’s special issue titled “Performing business and social innovation through accounting

inscriptions” highlighted the role of accounting inscription and its mediation of broad social issues.

As the concept of “accounting inscription” included in that AOS’s special issue shows, what we

know about the role of accounting in its society, has been progressed by the applying of Actor Network

Theory (ANT) or Sociology of Translation to accounting research. As sociological scholars’ argument,

ANT takes the symmetry principle of human and non-human actors, and consider non-human as

mediator rather than intermediary, emphasis their constitutive role in (re)assembling of society (Latour

1987, 2005). Inscription, as one of such mediator, refers to various techniques of "marking" an object

or event that is to be known writing, recording, drawing, tabulating. With the interrelated qualities of

mobility, stability and combinability, inscriptions can be gathered to become the “centre of

calculation”, and achieve long-distance control (Latour 1987). It is said that accounting as quantitative

practice is connected to inscription to assist action at distance (Law 1986).

Robson(1992) has introduced the concept of inscription to accounting research on early stage,

suggest that accounting inscriptions “display a strong mixture of mobile, stable and combinable

qualities” and thus can related to the long-distance control. Echoing with Robson(1992), not only

accounting practice such as accounting books (Quattrone 2009), indicators (Gendron et al., 2007),

reports (Mouritsen 1999), but other calculative devices such as ranking matrix (Pollock and D’Adderio

2012), risk evaluation program and technology (Themsen and Skaerbaek 2018), graph, format, chart

(Busco and Quattrone 2015; Thompson 1998), technology road map (Miller and O`Leary 2007), risk

matrix (Jordan et al. 2013), invoice (Corvellec, Ek, Zapata and Zapata Campos 2018) are also viewed

as inscription within accounting literature. These previous research have attended to the ability

inscriptions to enable control at a long distance (Robson 1992; Quattrone & Hopper, 2005; Corvllec,

Ek, Zapata & Zapata 2018).

This research explores the social significance of accounting by studying how the latter is

implicated in the design and implementation of a biodiversity conservation plan, named "Green

Corridor Plan", in Borneo, Malaysia. Its main purpose is to connect sanctuaries and Forest Reserves

located in the downstream of Borneo Kinabatangan River to protect wildlife biodiversity. The costs

for making the corridor has been collected mainly by Japanese companies’ donation. In this way, the

plan seeks to achieve sustainable development by building symbiotic relationships between economic

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development and environment protection. Inspired by previous research of accounting on social

significance, and the role of accounting inscription on long distance, this paper view the Green

Corridor Plan itself and other devices used in the plan’s operation process as inscriptions, and trying

to understand how these inscriptions mediate sustainable society in the way to connect the Borneo

environment issue to long distant Japanese participants.

2. Literature review

In their pioneering research, Burchell et al.,(1985) state that “Accounting is coming to be seen as

a social rather than a purely technical phenomenon”(381), and by introducing the practice of value-

add accounting in 1970’s UK, further state that “Accounting ramifies, extends and shapes the

social”(p.385). Robson and Young (2009) note that one of Burchell et al., (1985)’s contribution is to

highlight the power of accounting, that is to consider accounting knowledge as representation and

intervention: how accounting choice helps to shape the environment through its effects on other fields

of action (p.352).

Robson (1992) has applied the terms of inscription to accounting research, argued that

representational and interventional power of accounting numbers can “related to the problem of

achieving long-distance control” (p.686). With its visibility of written reports, the development of

numeracy, translate all the elements of remote organizations into quantities through the construct of

money value, accounting inscriptions facilitate the building of strong explanation, and have a great

potential for power or action at a distance (p. 701). Some Previous literature have provided insightful

conceptual and empirical findings for how accounting inscriptions could exert power on long distance.

In their case of introducing ERP system to two different MNO companies, Quattrone and Hopper

(2005) illustrated that how accounting inscription can be related in the MNO organization’s spatio-

temporal distance, between geographical and functional areas, and the centre and the periphery.

Corvllec et al (2018) also described how an environmental inscription named “pay-as-you-throw

waste-collection invoices” could close the distance between environment and economics, and also

connect residents to the political issue. Mouritsen et al. (2009) illustrates how management accounting

calculation connect economy and innovation, and shape the relationship among company, supplier and

customers.

Miller & O’Leary (2007) introduced the notion of “mediating instrument” to illustrate how

inscriptions can influence associating between scientific and financial domains, disassociated entities,

and thus play a constitutive role on making of market. In their research, “mediating instrument” refers

“those practices that frame the capital spending decisions of individual firms and agencies, and that

help to align them with investments made by other firms and agencies in the same or related industries”

(p.701). More specifically, they focus on the significant influence of ‘‘Moore’s Law’’ and ‘‘technology

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roadmaps” in late 20th century’s microprocessor industry. As mediating instruments, Moors’ Low and

technology roadmaps could be explained as “programmes” and “technology”. Programmes refers to

the discursive character of modes of governing, the imagining and conceptualising of an arena and its

constituents such that it might be made amenable to knowledge and calculation. On the other hand,

technologies refers to the possibility of intervening through a range of devices, instruments,

calculations and inscriptions. The governing of conduct is achieved through the interplay between

programmes and technologies, between the discursive and the instrumental.

Pollock & D’Adderio(2012) has taken Miller & O’Leary (2007)’s framework further by

introducing the notion of “sociomateriary”, highlighted the dynamic relation between “social” and

“material” sides of inscription. They illustrated how two by two matrix of ranking devices on one hand,

mediate vender’s interaction with ranking organization and other vendors, and influence shaping

competitive space. Along with this quite social aspect, the format and furniture of ranking device, the

material aspects of inscription also influence how the competitive space could be shaped. Thus, the

process of inscriptions on mediating of competitive market can be considered as socialmaterial

practice. There is no clear boundary between what is ’social’ and what is ’material’, so more precisely

there is “sociomaterial”. By using this terminology, they value in bring both aspects together to capture

how the abstract, generative capacity of a ranking can result from – and be shaped by – the interplay

of a heterogeneous range of sociomaterial constraints and practices.

In this paper, we consider the concept of mediating instrument as well as sociomaterality might

provide useful framework to illustrate the role of the inscriptions on the connecting Borneo

biodiversity issue to long distant Japanese companies. The aim of the paper is to explore how the

features of program and technology, social and material interplay in the process of design and

implementation of Green Corridor Plan.

3. Biodiversity issue at Borneo and the “Green Corridor Plan”

3．1 Back ground: The “Matters of concern” in Borneo

Borneo is located between the Malay Peninsular and the Philippine, around the equator. It is the

third largest island in the world. Since the 1980’s, agriculture with large scale conversion to oil palm

plantation has increased due to the growing global demand. In 2017, palm oil world production has

exceeded 75 million tons, it accounts for one third of total production and two-third of total exports of

the main vegetable oil in the world. Today, oil palm is the most dominant commercial crop in the

Borneo.

The increasing oil palm plantation however, has caused critical environmental and social issues,

loss of biodiversity is one of them (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - Japan 2017). It is said that

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more than 200 types of mammals, 260 types of amphibians and reptiles, 600 types of birds, 15000

types of plant and countless of insects are living in Borneo. The rainforest of Borneo had been existed

for 15 million years, but disappeared radically in recent 50 years with heavy economic logging

activities. Due to the environmental destruction, many wildlives in Borneo rainforest lost their habitat

and are in danger of extinction. For instance, the number of Borneo Orangutans has decreased by 90%

in the last 100 years, and has registered in the Washington Convention Red List as an endangered

species.

The decreasing of forest and increasing of plantation also caused conflict between wildlife and

local farmer. For the wildlife who have lost their habitat, such as Borneo elephant, frequently move to

village and invade the oil palm farm to looking for food, a herd of elephant’s movement causes heavy

destruction of the cultivation, this further strengthen the farmers’ damage to those wildlives.

Therefore, it seems that the issue of increasing oil palm plantation in Borneo appears prominently

contradiction between economy versus environment (Wakker 2005; Colchester et al. 2006; Yusof

2008) and can be seen as what ANT scholars called as “matters of concern” (Latour 2005) or “overflow”

(Callon 1998 a,b). At the situation of overflow, everything becomes controversial, and involve a wide

variety of actors to frame the externality. Calculative device could be mobilised and mediate the

process of framing of those externality (Callon 1998 a,b). The“Green Corridor Plan” was initiated to

deal with the conflict between economic development and environmental protection occurred in

Borneo. The ultimate purpose of the plan is to build a symbiotic relationship between economic

development and environment protection. Therefore, it might be seen as an important attempt to frame

Borneo controversial situation caused by oil palm plantation extension. We introduce the details in

next section.

3. 2 the Green Corridor Plan

Green Corridor Plan is aimed to making a green corridor that connecting sanctuaries and forest

reserves alongside with the downstream of Kinabatangan river, to allow the free movement of wildlife

without destruction of oil plantation. Figure 1 shows the map of the plan.

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Fig 1：The map of Borneo Green Corridor Plan

Source: B organization (2009) Group guide book, revised and translated by authors.

The detailed explanation is below:

“Wildlife sanctuaries and forest reserves located in downstream of Kinabatangan River (green area on

the map, 120,000 hectares) are floating in the sea of oil palm plantation (white area on the map).

Orangutan are trapped at each divided wildlife sanctuaries. If this situation continue, genetic diversity

will be lost because of inbreeding. Borneo Green Corridor (yellow area at the map) aims to connect

those wildlife sanctuaries and forest reserves, and ultimately to connect the lives of wildlife. The Green

Corridor area is 20000 hectares, by connecting those wildlife sanctuaries and forest reserves, we can

provide 140000 hectares of forest to the wildlife”. (B organization, public guide book, revised and

translated by authors)

The plan had been designed and conceptualized mainly by a Japanese scientist, and a NGO

organization has been founded in order to implement it. The way to connect those lands is, the NGO

collects donation from Japanese companies and other participants, and then purchases the plan’s target

lands for reforesting. Main events around the development of the Green Corridor Plan are as follow:

~2005: the plan was initiated by a Japanese scientist (henceforth referred to as Dr. T) who

had conducted environmental conservation activities in Borneo, and a chairman of local administrative

organization, Sabah Wildlife Dept (SWD). But at that time, the plan had to be suspended due to the

lack of organizational support.

2005: A Japanese oil palm user company (henceforth referred to as S company) decided to

engage with the plan, and the company’s participation enabled the plan move to the next stage.

2006: In order to implement the plan, a NGO organization (henceforth referred to as B

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organization) was established in Borneo.

2008: B organization’s Japanese office was established in Tokyo. B organization’s object is

to collect donation to purchase the plan’s target land, and to achieve the Green Corridor. B organization’

s Borneo office main activity is searching land seller at Borneo, Japan office is in charge of collecting

support money from Japanese companies. The first parcel of land was acquired in this year.

2009~ to present: the plan has been operating at the B organization (both of local and Japan

office) as a main business. Besides of the Green Corridor Plan, B organization is also conducting

wildlife protection project, biodiversity dissemination and enlightening project.

By the end of 2018, totaling 77.53 hectares’ lands has been acquired using about 100-million-yen

support money. In the next section, we will illustrate how this result is achieved thorough the

connection between Borneo biodiversity issue and the distant Japanese participants. Before that, we

briefly introduce research method and data collection.

3．3 Research method and data collection

Our research is a case study, and data collection started in April 2018, from three primary sources

(interviews, observation, and archival documents) and two secondary sources (a published company

history and in-house journals). The data is collected in order to clarify how the plan has been designed

and implemented, and how accounting is used in that process by various actors involved. Ten semi-

structured interviews were conducted totaling 1050 minutes, the interviewee and interview time as

follow.

Dr. T (A Japanese scientist, main actor of the plan’s designing, later became director of B

organization, and first generation of chairman at B organization’s Japan office), 210 minutes.

Mr. N (an investigator of S dispatched to Borneo in 2005, later became one of director at B

organization’s Japan office), 220 minutes.

2 stuff of B organization, predecessor and present executive director, 4 times, totaling 300

minutes.

Involved interviewee from 3 donor companies

S company: a Japanese oil palm user company, engaged at the project from conceptual stage, has

purchased 7 areas of lands, interviewed 2 times with 3 employees, totaling 180 minutes.

K company : another Japanese oil palm user company, the company has purchased 1 area of lands,

interviewed a marketing manager, totaling 60 minutes.

F company: a company manufactures and sales various productions with specific animal

character, the company has purchased 4 areas of lands, interviewed the president with 90 minutes.

We started data collection from April 2018, so the historical data is obtained from copies of

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archival documents of B organization Japan office’s meeting minutes and documents, from its

establishment (September 2008) to July 2019, including 14 board meetings and 8 general meetings

documents. We also collected public information published by donation companies and B organization

through their website, newspaper, journals, and books. We also have taken part in 2 general meetings

(180 minutes) and 3 workshops (360 minutes) that held by B organization as observer. All of these

data were recorded and transcribed later.

4．Acting on distance: mediating inscriptions for connecting Borneo to Japan

4. 1 Green Corridor Plan represent sustainable connection

Like Miller & O’Leary (2007)’s Moor ‘s Low published to problematize the semiconductor

industry, the Green Corridor Plan also designed to questioning excessive oil palm plantation and the

consequence of lost biodiversity in Borneo. At the heart of the Green Corridor Plan was used to

emphasize the plan’s importance and urgency, against a backdrop of science. The corridor approach,

in which the comings and goings of wildlife are facilitated to preserve biodiversity, is said to be

widespread in environmental conservation. For example, in the “6 Principles for the Formation and

Arrangement of Wildlife Habitat” proposed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature

(IUCN), the very first principle is that “divided regions should be connected by corridors” (Diamond

1975)1. Furthermore, similar projects have already been set in motion elsewhere in the world to create

corridors to preserve biodiversity (WWF Indochina 2003). Of these, the Green Corridor Plan in

Borneo was a direct inspiration for other projects—as Dr. T, one of the people behind its conception,

details below.

“The Green Corridor was originally the Kinabatangan Sanctuary, but there were 20 districts in this

27,000-hectare sanctuary, with 11,000 orangutans split into 20 groups total, by oil palms. If this

continued, then in 50 years, the percentage of land inhabited by orangutans would drop below 55%,

but if we connected the sanctuary with 20,000 hectares of forest, then those orangutans would survive,

and the percentage of land with orangutans roaming free would reach 95%—these were the findings

of the paper that was presented to the Sabah Wildlife Department.” (Dr. T)

Dr. T explained the use of these “scientific numbers”:

1 The six principles are: the larger the area, the better; division of the area should be avoided; divided green spaces

should be connected; areas should be equidistant rather than arranged in a line; divided areas can be dramatically

improved with the addition of a corridor; and the shape of the area should be as round as possible.

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“We have to guard against imposing certain worldviews—“elephants are as smart as humans, so I

can’t understand why we would kill them; turtles are cute, so we can’t kill them.” Conservation isn’t

the imposition of a certain worldview; …… It’s creating system—societal system, you know,

management system. Therefore, conservation is, at its heart, a system for management—the simple

use of science to achieve that end”.

In this statement, we can see another side of the social aspect of the Green Corridor Plan. In other

words, resolving environmental problems does not imply making the environment a supreme priority

and sacrificing all else in its name; the symbiotic relationship between people and animals,

environment and economy is important. The Green Corridor Plan represents this symbiosis in its

division of living space between oil palm plantations and wildlife habitats. Targeting areas along

Borneo’s Kinabatangan River for the Green Corridor Plan is based on the understanding that animals

travel most frequently along the river in search of minerals. Further, research suggested that the soil

along the river was not very suitable for oil palm production, qualitatively.

The sustainable connection between the resources that cause environmental problems in Borneo

and the manufacturers who use them also demonstrates the social aspect of the Green Corridor. This

connection is based on the fact that environmental destruction stems from excessive corporate

production and consequently, demand from the consumers using the products. Dr. T was initially

dispatched to the region by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a Japanese

environmental conservation organisation. Dr.T describes the situation as:

“It was awful. In the 1980s and ‘90s, there were 16,000 Japanese there, all the Japanese corporations

were there, all the companies involved with wood materials, and when I came in 2003, there were

only 122 people, just dabbling. …It’s complicated! I mean, I’m coming here to create a sanctuary,

right, and this destruction, they say, was caused by the “big companies” from Japan, my home.”

As shown in Fig. 1, the target area for the Green Corridor extends over 20,000 hectares.

Numerous methods of reforesting these lands have been considered, but given the responsibility of

businesses and consumers, the reforestation method was chosen as Dr. T describes:

“We discussed how to do it, and as a result, when we asked who ultimately benefited the most from

the oil palms, who was the ultimate beneficiary, it was Japanese consumers, consumers in developed

nations, right? And unless the ultimate beneficiaries, the one who gained the profit, participated in the

initial stages of solving this problem, then nothing would get done.”

Accounting calculation were mobilised to express the connection between consumers and resources.

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“It would take about 20 billion yen (to purchase all 20,000 hectares), but according to initial

estimates…at the time, there were 6 million tons of oil palms exported from the state of Sabah. 6

million tons is 600 billion yen worth of resources—and that’s as a raw resource; you can consider that

the ultimate product will bring about 3 times that, so it’s 1.8 trillion yen, ultimately. So 1% of that 1.8

trillion yen, it’s about 20 billion yen, right? 18 billion yen—that would solve the problem in one year.

So I kept saying ‘1%,’ ‘1%’… Sell the 100-yen ice cream for 101 yen, and you can do it.” (T)

In this way, the Green Corridor Plan was conceived to be representative of its social relations

from resource to its consumers, it made connection between Borneo environment issue to distant

developed Japanese companies in an ideal stance. This representation however, sympathized with a

Japanese palm oil user company’s affair and vision, made it possible to mobilise S company’s

participation. With S company’s cooperation, a NGO (B organization) was established in 2006 to

operate the plan. B organization explains the back ground of its foundation as follow:

“The establishment of B was first mooted as an exciting and unprecedented concrete Malaysian-

Japanese effort to buy back alienated wetlands and riverine forests for restoration to its original

state. A boat trip to Lower Segama in 2003 by a team of JICA experts that included Dr. T and the

Bornean Diversity & Ecosystems Conservation (BBEC)s Chief Advisor, Mr. K, had sparked an

interest to buy back alienated wetlands and riverine forests when they sighted an expansive area

of land which was supposed to be planted with oil palms, but were not. They found out that the

owners of the oil palm plantations had to give up the area/land for sale, because the said land was

within the direct migratory path of the Bornean elephants. The passing elephants simply wiped

out anything planted in their pathway. (B organization website)

To summarize, the Green Corridor Plan was initiated to problematize and improve controversial

situation at Borneo, with its representative features that emphasize socially sustainable connection

from resource to consumers. This is similar to what Miller and O’Leary (2007) called as “program”,

or Pollock and D’Adderio(2012)’s “social” aspect of inscription, this representative feature further

enabled the establishment of B organization. With the organization’s foundation, the abstractive idea

of Green Corridor Plan get further step to implement.

4. 2 Making connection at operational level

B organization’s establishment made the Green Corridor Plan move forward from the concept

phase to the execution phase. Malaysian land is socialised, being leased instead of privately owned.

However, only natives can purchase those leases. B organization was required to be different from

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other environmental NGO at Borneo. At the time, there were several environmental groups from the

West on-site that attacked the cultivation of oil palm trees and tried to deny local farmers completely

by boycotting palm oil and airing provocative TV ads, a staff member with B Organization, explains

this backdrop.

“When Western NGOs intrude into natural systems, the results are highly criticised. When this

happens, and locals are told to stop making palm oil, local sentiments naturally run toward, well, they

would feel like that protecting orangutans is more important than humans”. (B organization stuff)

Therefore, relationships of trust with the locals are important. In order to build good relationship

with locals, with the cooperation of the Sabah Wildlife Dept., a local administrative body, individuals

with social and political status were introduced and named as the central members of B organization’s

board of directors. 2 years later, B’s Japanese office was founded in Tokyo. That enabled the Green

Corridor Plan to develop as “Green Corridor Business”. The plan is proceeded as the Japanese site

collect donation while Borneo office purchase target lands. The whole plan needs to connect 20000

hectares’ lands, the cost for purchasing the lands was calculated as about 24 billion-yen. So the land

area and the cost became main indicators for operating Green Corridor Business. For example, one

document expressed the following:

Specific plan needed (20,000 hectares @ 24 billion yen is too rough an estimate)

In FY 2010, x yen was collected and y hectares obtained (memo: so far, x yen achieved in 1 year →

target of z yen in 1 year) (B Organisation meeting documents)

As the Green Corridor Plan expanded as a business, B organization developed accounting forms

to manage periodic business plans and reports, with annual statements on the area of land acquired for

the project and the cost of the acquisition.

Table 1: Green Corridor Business form

Budget Actual result

Income

Received donation

・・・

XXX

・・・

Expenditure

Payment donation

・・・

XXX

・・・

Balance XXX

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Source: B organization documents

In this table, income- almost is received donation- recorded when Japanese office receive

donation from participants, regarding the meaning of this income, a stuff of B organization explained:

“as a NGO, even increasing income is not our main business, but without money we can not do many

activities, specially this ‘Received Donations’, ・・・it is also an indicator to express how extant our

activities widely known and understood. So I recognize that the increasing of the numbers as the

indicators to represent the extant of our activities became well known in Japan as well as in Borneo”.

(B organization stuff)

So the main activities of Japan site are to organize lectures, exhibitions, and media appearances

urging more businesses to participate in the project. Local office are in charge of purchasing activities,

to search land seller, negotiate, and other administrative procedures in relation with land lease rights.

Expenditure would be recorded when land purchasing get the procedural confirmation and the money

is sent from Japan office to Borneo office. Donor companies, if their donation is enough to purchase

one area of lands, the company would have right to give a name to that area, for example, “○○’s

forest”, and the area would be painted with different color on the original map (Fig.2).

Fig 2: Completion map and the achievement to Nov.2018

Source: B organization documents

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In this way, the connection between Borneo environment issue and Japanese companies are

recorded in accounting formula, as well as represented on the image map of the plan. Next section we

will illustrate detailed process of why and how donor companies participate, and how these

inscriptions mediated connection.

4.3 the inscriptions mediate the connection

S company is a donor, and also an important actor in the plan’s development. S company has

been developing business related to the environment, health, and hygiene; since its founding, it has

been involved with business relating at dysentery prevention, anti-pollution measures, environmental

pollution, and the resolution of other societal issues. Biodiversity issues were directly brought to the

attention of S company by X detergent, which was one of main product of S company, and uses palm

oil as an ingredient. This detergent was developed in the 1970s to prevent environmental pollution and

remains a bestseller today. During Japan’s economic boom during the 1970s, environmental pollution

from petroleum-based detergents was becoming a social issue. Against this backdrop, S company’s X

detergent was a pioneer in the industry; it was quickly decomposed by microbes, used plant-based

ingredients that placed minimal burden on the environment. It became synonymous with

environmental conservation. The ingredient considered to be so environmentally-friendly was none

other than palm oil. Now, that “environmentally-friendly” palm oil is considered harmful to wildlife.

S company’s involvement in the Green Corridor Plan began when S company was asked to appear on

television program that issued the wildlife problem in Borneo. The president of S company learned of

the issue of Borneo’s environmental destruction from the program and made the following comment:

“I was surprised that development had proceeded so far as to present difficulties for the elephants and

others, honestly speaking.” (Saraya, Suteki na Uchuusen Chikyuu-gou (Our Wonderful Spaceship

Earth), aired: Aug. 2004)

“The program was an opportunity for me to hear about the environmental destruction that was

happening in Borneo, and so I decided not only to appear on the program, but I also thought that I

had to learn about what was happening on-site and began to investigate directly.… The elephants of

Borneo, the palm trees, and our company, which uses palm oil to manufacture detergent: I learned

anew of the hard truth of how everything on Earth is connected. It was a vivid lesson.” (Saraya, 2010:

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As is plain from this statement, this incident was the impetus for S company becoming aware

of the connection between Borneo wildlife, its resources, and S company’s role as a manufacturer

using those resources. This agrees with the idea of sociality raised by the Green Corridor Plan. After

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the appearance of S company’s CEO on the television program, the corporation dispatched a research

group to Borneo to understand local conditions but encountered Dr. T and the Green Corridor Plan. S

company’s decision to become involved with the Green Corridor Plan was heavily connected to the

social aspect the plan represented. Mr. N, who at the time was dispatched to Borneo as part of the S

company research group, made the following statement on how the company came to participate in

the Green Corridor Plan:

“At first, it was eco-tourism: projects to catch the elephants, find and treat injured elephants, that sort

of thing!… However, we knew that this wouldn’t solve the root problem! But then the Green Corridor

Plan appeared, and so in order to avoid conflict with humans, this Green Corridor Plan took an

approach of dividing habitats in order to of course protect humans, animals, and biodiversity—which,

well, seemed most suitable for the situation.”

Mr. N’s “solving the root problem” expresses an understanding of the importance of the goals of

the Green Corridor Plan. Mr. N, Dr. the president of S company also stated that the Green Corridor

Plan might offer a method of “solving the root problem” of Borneo’s biodiversity issues. After the

television program aired, in discussing future plans, employees of S company and those who saw the

program once proposed that S company “stop using palm oil and find another ingredient.” However,

research showed palm oil grown in Borneo was exported to developed nations all over the world and

used by consumers and manufacturers in developed nations because it was highly productive and

inexpensive. Therefore, it was thought that ceasing the use of palm oil would negatively impact the

lifestyles of local farmers. The parties involved, therefore, searched for a solution that would allow

the use of palm oil, yet resolve the biodiversity issue—hitting upon the Green Corridor Plan.

“Everything takes time, and a strong focal point is required. In other words, businesses should search

for revolutionary solutions and developments among their contemporaries, gather information, then

act. This process provides us with a path to sustainability and represents a ‘Green Corridor’ to us. We

want to protect it in the future.” (Saraya 2009)

In this manner, S company’s management philosophy coincided with the sociality expressed by

the Green Corridor Plan, S company decided to participate in the plan as a donor. Since 2006, as the

manufacturer of finished palm oil products, S company contribute 1% of the sales of those products,

as proposed by the Green Corridor Plan. Another donor company K who use palm oil to manufactures

and sales soap also has been donating 1% of soap sales to B organization since 2013. A manager of K

company explains their consideration about donation as follow:

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“Many familiar products, not only edible oil like potato chips, chocolates, but also cosmetics are using

palm oil. Some companies have set out the attitude of not using palm oil, but we thought differently.

It is the most used oil in the whole word, so saying stop using it might not be a good solution. Our

consideration is, we will continue to use it, but also give it back so that enable it can be produced

permanently. We think it can be a fundamental solution as the population grows. At that time, we have

met B organization’s project, and started to give back 1% of sales” (K company, manager)

When the expansion of palm oil become a subject of criticism, these palm user companies have

not chosen to disconnect with the problem, rather they have strengthened their connection to resource

and environmental issue caused from the resource. The Green Corridor Plan made the connection

possible both in terms of philosophy and at operational level. Furthermore, they also recognized the

importance of final consumers in the making of sustainable connection. The 1% of sales seems vital

to consumer’s participation.

Fig.3. depicts an image from an S company pamphlet.

Source: S company homepage

Fig.3 depicts how 1% of sales of products that use palm oil as an ingredient goes to addressing

environmental issues in Borneo through B Organisation. The image also describes how the

contributions are used to purchase land for the Green Corridor Plan; the upper-right lists the times at

which plots of land were purchased, as well as the names and areas of the plots purchased. S company

held a “You’re Protecting Borneo!” campaign promoting how 1% of sales from palm oil products

contributed to the cause. Below, the president of S company discusses the project:

“For consumers, the contribution of 1% of sales was something in which they could all participate

with their product purchases. The title of the campaign, “You’re Protecting Borneo!”, was conceived

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with the idea that it wasn’t just us as the manufacturer—it was something in which we could all

participate, with the consumers.” (Saraya, 2009: 163)

Fig. 3 indicates how consumers’ purchasing activities led to the purchase of land for the Green

Corridor Plan, which will connect wildlife sanctuaries in Borneo. K company manager said it is

important job for marketing department to communicate the knowledge of palm oil, Borneo

environment issue along with K company’s products to their customers. For instance, K company’s

marketing department edited a small bifold leaflet titled “Thanks to your support, K company’s road

for the elephant is made in Borneo”, with a product mark that combine elephant pictures and text of

“1% for Elephant”. The leaflet contains a brief introduction of palm oil and its relation to our life, the

problem caused by the oil plantation, and the activities of K company’s conduction including the

Green Corridor Plan. In the way to use this device, the manager said:

“We have about 120 shops in Japan, we put this leaflet just on the side of the products in every

shops. We also hold “aroma kid workshop” every year in summer season, when we use palm oil

resourced products at the workshop, we are trying to communicate the background and our

consideration in plain language that even children can understand”.

Actually, the contribution to the Green Corridor Plan was 1% of sales, not profits, so the degree

of participation by consumers was extremely high (Daishima 2008). In this manner, the Green Corridor

Plan and other devices including the calculation of the 1% sales contribution acted as mediating

instruments (Miller & O’Leary 2007) to raise awareness of the environmental issue among

manufacturers and consumers, who had previously been divided.

4.4 the existence of distance over the plan’s implementation

Even though inscriptions provide such a strong explanation to connect Borneo and Japan, there

are still some difficulties that inherent in such distance. The main difficulty they faced are relating to

“purchasing” activity. The first obstacle it had to overcome in purchasing local land was the difficulty

of finding local land to buy. B organization’s staff said:

“We’re saying that we want 500 hectares for next year, but nobody’s selling. …Local B Organisation

staff members go from village to village, and the village coordinator or someone who knows the

village news will say, they might sell over there—maybe a family needs money, there’s someone with

similar motivations—but later, the would-be sellers think that if I hold on to the land I have now,

there’s no chance of losing; that if they can afford it, it’s better for them to hold on to the land

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indefinitely.” (B organization stuff)

“What we’re doing now is basically—honestly, it isn’t walking house to house, but we are having

local real estate brokers research for us whether there are plots for sale in the area, and if someone

says “OK,” negotiate directly with them for us.” (Another B organization stuff)

The difficulty related to these citation reveal there are two aspects of distance that hard to

overcome. One is relating to the geographic distance. To find a land seller, they even need to get the

very private information of “who’s family need money for XX reason”, and directly negotiate with

them. Another more fundamental distance is relating to local resistance. A director of B organization

said as below:

“there is still a little resistance to the denial of the palm industry, because for most people,

someone in the family, relatives are involved or hired by the plantation company, or they

operating farm by themselves. At the local, when a diligence person looks for a decent job, oil

palm farm might be their first choice for it guarantee a stable income.” (Mr. N)

Fluctuations in local land costs also proved a challenge. Local land prices are connected to the

demand for and market cost of palm oil; therefore, owing to reasons such as increases in local real

estate investment by the wealthy or increased demand due to the Chinese Olympics, market prices, it

is said, doubled from initial estimates. Given these circumstances, determining when to put the

corporate contributions to use for land purchases became a challenge. An internal document expressed

the following:

“The main reason for not being able to purchase is due to soaring land prices. Land acquired in

the past was between 12,000 and 15,000 RM / acre, but is now rising to around 35,000 RM / acre.

For this reason, even the local B office could get selling information, they would not

communicate that to Japan office. We thought we should not buy at this price, so we are waiting

for the price down. Because once we buy at a high price, it can be a reference, however, it seems

difficult to expect that the price return to previous level”. (B organization director meeting)

The existence of distance also influenced their operation of Green Corridor Plan as a business. A

stuff said it is annoying that donations will be carried over to the next year for not able to purchase

lands. Another stuff also said their efforts and limitation to balancing the income and expenditures as

follow:

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“As NPO, I think the balance between received money and expenditures should be zero, even if not

just zero, I hope it should be about minus ideally. So we really want to do more ambitious things for

improving local situation, such as buying lands and other environment protection activities. But in

reality, we can not proceed many things until we get local permission, so we will conduct our project

gradually while communicating to the local state government, and other environmental NGOs”. (B

organization stuff)

These statement implies the difficulties they facing is come from not only geographical distance

between two offices, but also more fundamental distance that arising from local culture and economic

environment. Facing these problems, several concerns were raised:

“・the possibility of the land transformed to palm plantation

・accountability to the donors (both of companies and individual)

・pressure from donor companies, delinquency.” (B organization director meeting)

The concerns of “accountability to the donors” and “pressure from donor companies, delinquency”

suggest that those problems might threaten the connection between Borneo environment issue and the

donor companies.

5．Discussion and Conclusion

The purpose of the research is to explore the social significance of accounting by studying how

the latter is implicated in the design and implementation of a biodiversity conservation plan, Green

Corridor Plan in Borneo, Malaysia. The plan seeks to achieve sustainable development by building

symbiotic relationships between economic development and environment protection, cooperation

among different interests including NGO, companies, local farmers, and consumers. Making

connection from resource to final consumers, from Borneo to Japan seems significant to building

sustainable society in our case.

Inspired by previous research of accounting on social significance, and the role of accounting

inscription in action on long distance, this paper view the Green Corridor Plan itself and other devices

used in the plan’s operation process as inscriptions, and trying to understand how these inscriptions

mediated such a sustainable connection. Our finding suggested that the social as well as material

aspects of the inscriptions, coincided with donation companies’ responsibility and business philosophy,

make it possible to connect Borneo environmental issue with long distant Japanese participants.

The Green Corridor Plan represent social aspect by first, to emphasize the plan’s importance and

urgency with a backdrop of science; second, to show the symbiotic relation between human and

19

wildlife, economy and environment; thirdly, to state the connection among material cultivation in

developing countries and its user, i.e. final production manufactures and customers in developed

countries. These representation of social relationship not only functioned as problematisation device

in controversial situation, but also provided a framework to those companies who realized their

responsibility for using palm oil and wanted to strengthen their connection with palm oil problem.

However, like “Moors Law” is developed and extended by “Technology Roadmap”(Miller and

O’Leary 2007), and strong social power of Ranking is afforded by two-by-tow matrix Ranking Device

(Pollock and D’Adderio 2012), the ideal and abstract dimension of Green Corridor Plan also developed

in foundation with B organization, and its operating practice. The plan’s whole goal was break down

into yearly target, with two indicators of land area and the cost to acquire the land. Image map,

accounting formula, 1% of sales were created to record and communicate their activities to connect

Borneo environment issue to pail oil users in Japan.

Robson (1992) argued that with its power of visibility, the development of numeracy, the

construct of money value, accounting inscriptions could get characteristics of mobility, stability,

combinability, and have great potential to action on long distance. Green Corridor Plan and other

devices seems to have such characteristics, for it mobilized more and more participants over its

implementation, and used by different parties (i.e. the map is used in NGO, and company). Even these

inscriptions have such power to close the distance between palm oil consumers and the environmental

issue, between Japan to Borne, some distance that come from geographic as well as cultural and

economic conditions are still hard to overcome. The existence of these distance in turn influenced the

plan’s implementation, also has been considered as threat for making the sustainable connection.

Busco and Quattrone (2018) suggested that this inherent incompleteness of accounting inscriptions

also signals motives to go forward, and inevitably generates and points to inventive capacities (also

Dambrin and Robson 2011). Further research need to clarify how such incompleteness exactly perform

and still have limitation on long distance.

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