Sustainable Governance, Finance and Accounting
Governance, finance and accounting are vital to achieving sustainable business and development outcomes. We believe that business can be profitable and good for the world: delivering in a socially responsible way that protects our natural environment and achieves the financial bottom line target. Effective governance systems form the frameworks necessary for sustainable business and development to occur. Innovative and collaborative approaches to governance are complemented by accounting and reporting systems that facilitate the management of financial, environmental and social sustainability. Two current examples of reporting initiatives that encourage organisations to measure and report their performance and risk for key aspects of sustainability are the Global Reporting Initiative and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board’s Reporting Framework.
Financial sustainability is an important aspect of organisational sustainability that can often best be achieved through innovations that also enhance environmental and social sustainability. However the capital market implications of sustainability innovations are not well understood, and represent an area in need of further research to assist both investors and corporations. While the responsible investment community has a focus on consideration of more than just the financial aspects of sustainability, the financial community more broadly is grappling with issues surrounding the valuation of risks and innovations, particularly those related to climate change and other aspects of environmental sustainability.
The ACSBD supports the Global Reporting Initiative’s Report or Explain Campaign Forum. This forum aims to increase organizational transparency worldwide and focuses on minimum sustainability disclosure regulation.
List of projects
- Carbon Reporting in the Queensland Public Sector: The state of play, trends and better practices
- Improving farm productivity and competitiveness in the Australian macadamia industry
- GRI Sustainability Disclosure Guidelines and the quality of sustainability disclosures by Australian companies
- To what extent has institutional investor activism influenced carbon disclosures by ASX200 companies?
- BDO Not-for-Profit Fraud Survey 2010
- Drafting a national quality-of-governance standard relevant for sustainable management and use of forest biomass in Nepal
- Multi-stakeholder Project to Evaluate the Governance of Responsible Investment Institutions
List of members
Download/view our Sustainable Governance, Finance and Accounting capability statement (PDF* 419 KB).
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