Sustainability accounting: Using accounting to better society
When most people think of accountants they think measuring financial impact, but recently their skills are also being applied to sustainability—measuring environmental impact, social impact, emissions, employee well-being, energy usage and more.
Alex Semancik | November 6, 2024
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When the average person thinks of accounting, they likely think of something monetary and rooted in finance. While it is true many accountants measure financial impact, recently, their skills are also being applied to sustainability—measuring environmental impact, social impact, emissions, employee well-being, energy usage and more.
Jennifer Stevens, an associate professor in OHIO’s College of Business, says that her students are different today. More and more students have a desire to use accounting to make an impact and benefit society, and sustainability accounting is a career option for students to do just that.
As more businesses shift their focus to operating sustainably and implementing sustainability initiatives, someone needs to hold them accountable, reliably measure these factors and report them. Stevens believes accountants are the natural choice to take on this role. Accounting professionals have a knack for measuring things, they’re just applying the skills they already have to a new set of resources and expanding from just measuring financial resources to measuring the impact of a variety of other resources.
“Accounting is key to the future success of sustainability initiatives because companies need to be accountable, we need to be able to verify what they're saying and we need to hold them accountable for what they're saying and the goals that they're setting,” said Stevens. “If investors, if governments, if stakeholders, if the public are going to care about environmental concerns and a business's impact on the environment, companies are going to have to start to measure and report that.”
Sustainability accounting, also known as environmental, social and governance (ESG) accounting, is not exclusively about auditing companies and holding them accountable, it’s also a matter of advising entities on their progress, helping them set goals and working with them to reach those goals. Since it is such a new concept, creating sustainability reports for businesses can be a daunting task, but it is also an important and exciting one according to Stevens.
“This is an area that is just so new and up and coming. I mean, if you thi