Sustainability and the Accountant
ACCA is currently publishing a series of briefing papers for its members, each providing a high level overview on a core accounting discipline and how it is converging with sustainability, how this convergence is relevant to the accounting profession and importantly, the role of the accountant. The papers serve to be an introductory guide (rather than a technical paper) that aim to introduce the accountant to the exciting changes to the profession as sustainability becomes more material to businesses worldwide.
The suite of ACCA member briefing papers will cover the following issues:
- Reporting
- Economic Instruments
- Audit & Assurance
- Governance
- Accounting
In addition, a complementary paper summarising the sustainability elements of the revised ACCA qualification will be published, to highlight ACCA’s continuing commitment that tomorrow’s accountant has a pivotal part to play in sustainable development.
In line with other ACCA publications, the member briefing papers are only published on the Website and are available to download. The papers are interactive and you will need to click on elements such as the references to be taken into a different window.
The member briefing papers are being published on a rolling cycle, and will be added to this section when finished. The second paper is due to be published in October 2008.
AccountAbility is a global non-profit network with representatives in London, Washington, Beijing, Geneva, Sao Paulo and San Francisco, established in 1995 to promote accountability innovations that advance sustainable development. AccountAbility works with business, government and civil society organisations to advance responsible business practices and the governance of collaborations between public and private institutions.
AccountAbility's leading-edge accountability innovations include: the AA1000 Series Sustainability Assurance and Stakeholder Engagement Standards, the Partnership, Governance and Accountability framework, the Responsible Competitiveness Index covering the links between responsible business practices and the competitiveness of over 100 countries, and, in collaboration with csrnetwork, the Accountability Rating of the world's largest companies published annually with Fortune International. AccountAbility is convenor of the MFA Forum , an international alliance of business, international development agencies, NGOs and labour organisations working on the links between national competitiveness and labour standards in global supply chains. AccountAbility and the Centre for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College are co-founders and convenors with IBM and GE of the Global Leadership Network, an international network of leading businesses committed to building alignments of corporate responsibility to business strategy by advancing joint learning and relevant analytic tools and benchmarking.
KPMG's Global Sustainability Services® is a network of around 300 practitioners working in KPMG's member firms in more than 35 countries. We work together to provide our firms' clients with corporate responsibility advice, assurance and advisory services on issues such as carbon footprints, climate change, human rights, health and safety, and other key issues on board and Audit Committee agenda.
We help our clients to understand the key risks and opportunities that they face and to effectively manage these to deliver value to the bottom line. To find out more visit the KPMG website.