Sustainable development is a topical issue affecting many nations, and a topic of intense interest globally. The Sustainable Development Goals specify targets for both developed and developing countries alike. 

The SDGs require the implementation of environmental and social sustainability accounting practice (SAP) by corporate entities in an effort to achieving sustainable development. SAP is an emerging field that advocates for the identification, collection, analysis and reporting of information relating to the environmental, social and economic activities of an organisation.

It provides relevant information that help organisations achieve their sustainable targets, and this includes sustainability accounting techniques (SATs) such as environmental management accounting (EMA), activity-based costing (ABC), life cycle costing, customer accounting, integrated performance measurement, quality costing and competitor accounting. These techniques facilitate planning, control and decision-making with respect to the sustainability endeavours of an organisation .

This study aims to investigate corporate governance mechanisms affecting environmental and social sustainability accounting practice (SAP). Four internal and two external governance mechanisms were examined. The study comprises 56 publicly listed manufacturing companies on the Mainboard of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.