Last Wednesday, CIMA's CEO, Charles Tilley and I found ourselves at St James's Palace State Apartments to hear HRH The Prince of Wales and the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne speak about the role of business and government in preventing ‘the greatest accounting failure the world has ever seen’. We were joined by 200 representatives from the international accounting and business communities, investors, government, academia and civil society.

This is the question Prince Charles pondered when we met with him yesterday to discuss sustainability together with representatives of the accounting bodies of the UK. I certainly hadn't been at a meeting table on a moving train before, and pitied the stewards pouring coffee!

Marking the launch of the Accounting for Sustainability Wales Forum – the meeting was scheduled in order to share objectives with the Prince, whilst he was travelling between Cardiff and Bristol on the Royal Train – promoting sustainability across the UK.