PART 2: Assurance and audit might not get your heart racing – but they're fundamental to investment. In the second in this four-part series, columnist Jeremy Nicholls explains what financial audit means for sustainability assurance.
PART 1: Assurance and audit might not get your heart racing – but they’re at the very heart of how profit-making firms can contribute to sustainability. Our columnist Jeremy Nicholls on why it’s time to fall in love with the nuts and bolts of business.
Company directors’ reliance on international accounting standards means sustainability issues are currently reported separately, if at all. But there are steps they can take to better meet their legal responsibilities, says our columnist.
The financial accounting system we use today is hurtling towards irrelevance, undermined by the very inequality to which it has contributed. It's time to change how profit is calculated – before it's too late.
Efforts to engage stakeholders are sometimes ok, sometimes awful, says our columnist. Twelve failings to avoid – and how a focus on power and rights can make engagement matter.
Historic abuse of human rights is hardwired into our financial accounting systems, says our columnist – and so-called solutions to global inequality are merely wallpapering over the cracks.
GDP up, good; GDP down, bad? Not so simple, especially when assessing citizens’ wellbeing. Many alternative measures aim to fill that gap, but none can entirely replace GDP, writes our columnist – and in any case, the real issue lies deeper...
Our financial accounting systems were designed by white men, for white men – with disastrous implications for people and planet. Could a gender lens help us reshape an accounting system built on empathy and that works for the majority?
Are public sector accounts ‘materially misstated’? Our columnist gets anxious as he submerges himself in the alphabet soup of global public sector accounting standards – and proposes a simple addition to bring social value back to the surface.
