Coping with cognitive dissonance in critical environmental accounting research and education

Abstract

As academics actively involved in teaching and researching accounting for the natural environment and nonhuman animals in our home institutions, we often experience mixed feelings on the meaningfulness and usefulness of our educational and scholarly activities. We take this Special Issue as an opportunity to reflect on the feelings of cognitive dissonance we experience when trying to respond to the urgency posed by multiple ecological crises. We complement our reflections through real-life examples from our professional experience that illustrate misalignments between our ecologically driven values and our actions. We hope that our exploration of the coping strategies adopted to navigate such inconsistencies will spark further discussion in the academic world.