In the past decade, there’s been a strategic shift in business management to embrace sustainability. The need for reporting and communicating the efforts being made has come alongside this trend.

Sustainability is no longer a voluntary part of business operations; a nice-to-have and “let’s do a bit of good on the side”. It’s become a business imperative with a focus on strategic implementation and sustainability becoming a way to create competitive advantage within the corporate workforce.

The 2008 financial crisis brought sustainability issues to the fore, but current economic woes – from the US having to negotiate a raised debt ceiling to Greece which is still tottering on the brink of bankruptcy – and ongoing fears of a double-dip recession have added a further urgency to sustainable business practices.

Companies need to balance financial growth, shareholder returns, corporate responsibility and stakeholder demands. In the past, more emphasis was given to short-term gains, but this must now be evaluated in terms of the trade-off with long-term profits. As the CIMA briefing document “Sustainability in emerging markets: Lessons from South Africa” (2010) showed, companies are able to unlock value by looking past profit.

By going beyond the traditional focus on the financial bottom line, share price and dividends, firms have invested in a variety of broader programmes such as employee wellness, community involvement and sustainable operations. Executed correctly, many corporations discover that these initiatives have a clear impact on corporate health and profitability. While it’s essential that social initiatives achieve their goals, they must also make good business sense and create businesses that will not only survive, but thrive, in the long-term.

Businesses, investors, regulators and other stakeholders need to make informed decisions, and they are turning to sustainability reports and using environmental, social and governance criteria to advise their investment decisions.

Sustainability reports now contain substantial and detailed performance metrics and reflect the priority companies have given to measuring and managing the impact of their operations. CFOs can use these reports as a tool for uncovering corporate value. By improving narrative reporting and giving stakeholders forward-looking, contextualised information, I believe they gain a clearer view of the quality and sustainability of future cash flows and performance.

Charles Tilley, CIMA CEO has been quoted as saying: “Accountants have at least three significant competencies that they can transfer from traditional finance roles to sustainability initiatives – their analytical ability, their knowledge of business information systems and their experience of reporting performance. By virtue of their role as information providers, accountants can be most influential; they can change mind-set, and influence decision-making processes and reporting. If the accountancy profession is to remain relevant, accountants must take ownership of sustainability.”

Sustainability can, indeed, drive significant business benefits within an organisation. Too many however, leave that value dormant and unrealised. A robust sustainability performance management discipline driven by finance professionals is the key to accessing this value.

The CIMA World Conference being held in Cape Town, South Africa on 24-25 October 2011, has been programmed with precisely these issues and opportunities in mind. The conference is themed Business in tomorrow’s world - a sustainable future and will address many of the issues facing CFOs today, including several case studies which demonstrate how organisations are implementing sustainability projects and how these projects are adding real value to the business in both financial and non-financial areas.

I hope to see some of you there, and for those who cannot attend, we welcome your comments here on our blogs or via Twitter.

--

Visit www.cimaglobal.com/worldconference or email wc@cimaglobal.com if you would like more information on the CIMA World Conference, 24-25 October 2011, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Follow @CIMA_News on Twitter for blogs and live updates on the conference, and add you own comments and questions on Twitter including the tag #worldconf2011 in your tweets.