Spreading the Sustainability Puzzle Pieces on the Table

This chapter offers a summary of the aims of the book and provides an introduction to the book’s content. Considering the role of public administration in achieving sustainable development, the overarching aim of the book is to investigate how public financial management systems have been influenced by sustainability purposes in different European countries and what changes have been introduced or are being planned to accommodate sustainable development. In this sense, the book covers all aspects linked to public financial management: budgeting, accounting, reporting and auditing, and offers an important contribution to sustainable development research in the public sector. Moreover, an innovative aspect of the book is that it presents the experiences of the countries analysed through a comparative perspective while discussing the methodology used to obtain the comparative information. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction to the content of all chapters included in the book.