MyCIMA

Federation of European Accountants Policy

Posted: Wednesday 07 October 2009 by Jack Christian
Replies : 4
Keywords: accountability, corporate governance, Strategy

The FEE have published 7 policy statements this year.  They believe that accountants have an important role to play in supporting the adoption of a strategic approach to sustainability.  They even call on the IASB and IAASB to play a leading role in the development of standards on, for example,carbon emissions information and assurance on sustainability reporting.

I believe accounting is shifting beyond the economic and must begin to embrace social and environmental issues more enthusiastically.  I was disappointed to read CIMA's publication "Making a success of your business: essential checklists" as there was no explicit reference to sustainability issues.  I think CIMA could do more and wonder if others feel the same.  I for one would be willing to contribute material and ideas, is there anyone else out there?  

Sustainability

Posted by Peter Simons on Monday 09 November 2009 19:58

Hello Jack,

OK, there's no explicit reference to sustainability in that essential checklists report for SMEs. However, CIMA has published lots of material about Sustainability and Environmental Management AQccounting over the years.

If you go to the CIMA Global home page, click on the Resources tab and then on the Sustainability tab you'll find some recent material. There's more in the pipeline including a MAG (Management Accounting Guide-line) which was written by CIMA for AICPA (USA), CMA (Canda) as well as our own members. This and two survey based reports will be published before the year end.

Whereas other bodies emphasise reporting on Sustanability or CSR (corporate social responsibility) or the assurance of those reports, CIMA's position is that the starting point is that these issues represent opportunities and threats which must be addressed by management to ensure the business' long term success. Management accountants have a key role to play in providing the management information to support decision making and then performance management. Increasingly this will extend to providing information and influencing decision making about sustaninability and CSR issues.

Member's material, ideas and insghts would be most welcome.

Regards,

Peter

Sustainability and the management accountant

Posted by Gillian Lees on Tuesday 17 November 2009 18:01

Hi Jack - just to add to Peter's comment, we are planning to launch a new guide Climate change and the management accountant on 8 December to coincide with the Copenhagen climate change talks.  This is based on survey results and will also contain some useful case study material. 

Most important, though is its discussion on the management accountant's role and the call to action.

I'm also looking at sustainability in the broadest sense of the word ie not just climate change.  So for example, is it a sustainable practice to lend people money when you know they can't pay it back?  I'm drawing up a list of awkward questions to get some debate going on what sustainable behaviour looks like - I'm planning to post these on my blog soon and I'd be very interested to hear your views.

Best wishes

Gillian 

 

 

"Global Compact"

Posted by Cliff Moggs on Wednesday 25 November 2009 19:49
In 2000 Kofi Annan initiated the Global Compact. It invited corporatioons to commit themselves to nine principles. This can be seen at www.unglobalcompact.org/Portal/Default-asp Maybe a source for some of your questions. Best regards Cliff Moggs

Responsible business

Posted by Danielle Cohen on Thursday 26 November 2009 15:57

And just so I get to plug the initiative I'm working on, too (!), I've been holding roundtables with businesses and NGOs to find out what they think needs to happen to rebuild trust in business and to create responsible, sustainable businesses going forward. We're also going to be looking more closely at the changing role of management accountants in this. An initial 2-pager called 'Business trust: a critical time' was published in July, but we'll be working more in on this in 2010.

 

Danielle