Recommendations for the sustainable age
The ‘business as usual’ model for organisations world-wide is no longer an option in this sustainable age, says ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) today as it publishes its Sustainability Agenda for Action called Going Concern?
Allen Blewitt, ACCA’s chief executive, said: “Our commitment to the sustainability agenda sets a benchmark to which all professional bodies and associations should aspire. Going Concern? challenges influential stakeholders to acknowledge the growing societal and environmental burdens and make the change.
“Because the ‘business as usual’ model is no longer an option, businesses will have to change their entire range of products, services and operations to be truly sustainable. We all have our part to play to make progress towards sustainable development and the accountancy profession has a pivotal role within this.”
Allen Blewitt concluded: “In increasingly difficult economic circumstances, sustainability reporting may seem like a luxury to be postponed for better times; but the reality of climate change and the magnitude of the challenges it provides for all of humanity means that we cannot delay. Sustainability reporting need not be excessively costly, but it sends very positive signals to employees, customers and suppliers.”
With sustainable development (SD) increasingly recognised as a key issue facing society and business, ACCA encourages all organisations to ensure that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is at the heart of business strategy.
Going Concern? also calls for all SD-related regulation to be fair, proportionate and to be on a level playing field so that businesses can still operate in the commercial world. The report offers eight key policy areas to be addressed, from corporate governance to audit and assurance. On a practical level, the report also offers a series of recommendations for business, government and the accountancy profession to take on board, including:
• Businesses should make sustainability a core part of their strategy and include sustainability key performance indicators in their reward and pay systems for senior managers.
• Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SMEs) need help from governments to guide them in measuring their key environmental and social impacts.
• SMEs should become more proactive in the CSR debate and increase their profile and contribution to the growing number of initiatives, guidelines and standards being developed.
• Governments should encourage organisations to produce sustainability reports and learn from other Governments in this area (eg. Sweden and Hong Kong) to report themselves.
• Investors should work to adapt investment practices to account for climate change, integrating them into their investment processes and systems.
• The International Education Standards Board of the International Federation of Accountants should incorporate SD and CSR matters into its basic education requirements.
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Notes to Editors
1. ACCA is the largest and fastest-growing global professional accountancy body and has 325,606 students and 122,426 members in 170 countries.
Going Concern? is split into the following chapters.
• Section One Sustainable development and corporate social responsibility: a general policy approach
• Section Two Corporate governance, strategy and sustainability: the importance of integration
• Section Three Climate change: how the accounting profession should respond
• Section Four Accounting in practice: the need to improve how we account for sustainability issues
• Section Five Sustainability reporting: recognising the imperative for transparency
• Section Six Audit and assurance: why credibility matters
• Section Seven Education and training: what should the next generation of accountants and managers learn?
• Section Eight Small and medium sized enterprises: their role in the sustainability debate
2. A PDF of the report can be found at the following link:
http://www.accaglobal.com/pdfs/technical/tech-gc-001.pdf
For further information please contact:
For further information, please contact: Helen Thompson, ACCA Newsroom phone: +44 (0)20 7059 5759 / + 44 (0)7725 498 654 e mail: helen.thompson@accaglobal.com