In business school we were taught ?How to read a balance sheet?. Many hours were spent coming to terms with the accounting terminology and processes. There are atleast 5,00,000 professionals consisting of MBA?s and Chartered accountant?s in India today who regularly participate in preparing Corporate India?s Annual Reports.
Many professional accountants today, are taken aback to hear that accounting as they know it is about to change forever. The Sustainability community today is talking about Integrated Reporting – a way of accounting for economic, social and environmental (ESG) impacts.
For most accountants/ finance departments all over the world sustainability has been either about risk mitigation or compliance. It hasn?t really made a significant dent in how they worked. However, integrated reporting is about to change all that. The Global Reporting Initiative and The Prince?s Accounting for Sustainability Initiative are driving the change towards integrated reporting practices at organizations all over the world.
The Prince?s Accounting for Sustainability Initiative talks about 10 main elements to embed sustainability. Here are my comments on (4 points) their implications for Indian Companies and CFO?s
[slideshare id=4650075&doc=integratedreporting-indiancfos-100630061320-phpapp02]