ACCOUNTING FOR SUSTAINABILITY: PRACTICAL INSIGHTS
Perhaps the most critical challenge facing business and society generally is to tackle climate change and live within our ecological limits, while continuing to enjoy economic prosperity. Key to addressing this challenge is the need for all organizations, public and private, to embed sustainability into their "DNA". Although sustainability accounting has developed in recent years, relatively few organizations have comprehensive systems and procedures to ensure that sustainability considerations are taken into account fully and consistently in decision-making and reporting.
This book presents examples of how organizations have used these accounting for sustainability tools and principles to embed sustainability into their DNA. Key features include:
- practitioner-oriented illustrations of 'connected thinking' between the organization's sustainability agenda, overall strategy and core business activities;
- examples of processes that have been followed to enable sustainability issues to be taken into account clearly and consistently in strategic and day-to-day decision-making;
- examination of how the embedding of sustainability extends beyond an organization's own boundaries to take into account suppliers and customers;
- examples of how to measure sustainability performance and financial impacts and the systems and processes necessary to support the collection of relevant data; and
- identification of barriers to embedding sustainability and ways in which organizations have sought to address and overcome these.
In-depth cases studies from Aviva, BT, the Environment Agency, EDF Energy, HSBC, Novo Nordisk, Sainsbury's and West Sussex County Council paint a rich picture of accounting for sustainability in practice and a wealth of lessons and examples of both common pitfalls and good practice.
This book is indispensible for all business leaders, accountancy professionals and others seeking to embed sustainability into the DNA of their organizations in the pursuit of both better business and better sustainability performance.
The book will be published mid-June and can be pre-ordered now. For publication details and pre-orders see the Earthscan website. Get a 20% discount when ordering any book at www.earthscan.co.uk using the voucher code A4S.