Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Thanks for accepting my invitation ... I have been passionate about accounting, accountability and transparency since I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in London over half a century ago! I have been concerned for a very long time that corporate reporting has been far too limited with focus only on the profits and the investors leaving out society and the environment ... so I am obviously delighted that SASB has been established. I would observe, however that while it is very good to have standards related to sustainability (as there are standards for financial accounting), it is not clear to me that we have established the 'principles' of sustainability accounting. If my history serves me right, there were 'principles' of (financial) accountancy and reporting a long time before any standards were promulgated. To the extent that my thinking can be helpful ... I would be delighted to help ... but I don't want to get in the way! Peter Burgess truevaluemetrics.org