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Burgess COMMENTARY To be honest, I am not sure what all of this means. I think there were some lines in a Shakespeare play that talked about a lot of sound and fury ... SIGNIFYING NOTHING !!!!!!!!!! and I am bothered that this may be the current situation. I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in London in 1965 after studying both engineering and economics. Later I became a young CFO in the USA and then did consulting work for the World Bank and the UN. Now I am post career and a free spirit concerned about everything. We have been talking about social responsibility and environmental sustainability for decades but there is still no easy, openly accessible methodology for numbering all of this in a way that is coherent, comprehensive and compatible with already established routines of profit reporting. There is a lot of scientific brilliance, but very little management competence ... the needle simply doesn't move!!!!!!! When I apply some fairly conventional analytical processes to social and environmental issues for major companies, it is not too difficult to argue that there are of value that really ought to be eliminated from conventional corporate financial value analysis. This is serious stuff ... and in my view it is high time that the accountancy profession stood up and make a real stink ... and did the things needed so that quantification of social and environmental impact is implemented !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Respectfully PeterB Peter Burgess | ||
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ICAEW: our roadmap for carbon neutrality
17 September: Chief Executive Michael Izza outlines ICAEW’s commitment to become carbon-neutral, making it the first major professional body in the UK to declare carbon neutrality. I am excited and proud to announce that ICAEW is transforming into a carbon-neutral organisation. Climate change is the single most important challenge the world faces and fundamental action is necessary to tackle it. Businesses have a moral and environmental duty to lead by example and economic prosperity depends on a thriving planet. Over the past five years at ICAEW, our internal initiatives have already reduced our carbon footprint by 20% - with a continuing downward trajectory. Now, our commitment to become carbon-neutral marks the next significant step and makes us the first major professional body in the UK to declare carbon neutrality. How are we doing this? We will be implementing several internal carbon-reducing projects during the coming years, which in themselves will reduce our emissions by 20% by 2025, and 40% by 2030. In addition, we will immediately be purchasing carbon offsets against our entire annual greenhouse gas emissions. We know that there are very valid questions about the practice of offsetting. That is why we have comprehensively reviewed the offset market and identified projects and schemes which help to deliver against some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), of which we are long-standing supporters. We explored a number of options for offsetting, focussing on transparency, veracity of certification and quality of reporting. Ultimately, we want to see measurable and trackable outcomes and sound assurance mechanisms in any schemes we are contributing to. We also know that offsetting is only a shorter-term solution and that embedding changes to our operations at institute level, and to our behaviours at an individual level, will make the biggest difference in the long-term. Therefore, we have undertaken comprehensive research to decide what policies and initiatives we need to implement. These include reductions in overseas travel and increasing our use of technology for meetings and conferences, and will be documented and evaluated in an ongoing case study. As these are implemented, they will constitute an ever-larger proportion of our carbon-reduction activities, reducing our dependence on offsetting. In any event, we want to be ambitious – for our institute and more importantly for the environment – so we are also expanding the scope of our carbon reduction beyond that of many other organisations, by including employee commuting in our carbon footprint. This, of course, means taking account of emission levels over which we have no direct control, and thus will depend in part upon the actions of public transport networks and others – highlighting the importance of interdependency and collaboration. A continuing agenda This is not a new area of focus for ICAEW. We have increasingly placed the UN SDGs at the heart of our strategy and actively encouraged our members to do the same in their businesses (for more information on our SDG activities visit our Global Goals Hub). We already disclose our carbon emissions annually through the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and every four years to ESOS. We also support the FSB Task Force for Climate-related Disclosures and host the Capitals Coalition. Climate change and sustainability are also already embedded into many modules of our ACA syllabus, and we recently signed the Green Finance Education Charter, committing us to building green finance into our qualifications. This is now about moving from individual, targeted sustainability initiatives, to something that holistically impacts our main business, driven at our most senior levels and intrinsically connected to the everyday activity of all of our employees. We know that many across the profession are already setting significant carbon reduction targets and investing heavily to achieve them, and hope that our move to carbon neutrality will encourage others to accelerate their own sustainability agendas. ------------------- Francis Xaviour Joe, Digitisation of Sustainability Reporting commented on this Francesca SharpStatus is reachable Francesca Sharp • 1st Technical Lead Climate Change at ICAEW 6d • 6 days ago Today is a big day for two reasons. It is the launch of WWF's latest film 'Our Planet Too Big to Fail' which acts as a stark reminder of the planetary challenges of #climatechange and #biodiversityloss that the #business and #finance community must respond to. Today is also the day that ICAEW commits to achieve carbon neutrality in 2020. We think we are the first major UK professional body to do so and can't wait for others to follow. #CarbonNeutralICAEW #OurPlanetTooBigToFail https://lnkd.in/gqn68xB ICAEW is going carbon neutral banner with logo and image of globeActivate link to view larger image. with Richard Spencer and 2 others LIKE PRAISE EMPATHY 173 12 Comments ------------------- Most Recent See profile for Natalie de Freitas Natalie de Freitas 2nd degree connection 2nd Global Media Relations Manager at Accenture 3h This is brilliant Like Natalie de Freitas’ comment ------------------- See profile for Julian Smith Julian Smith 2nd degree connection 2nd Director, memcom executive (senior appointments) and memcom consulting 4d Francesca - this is awesome. Here at memcom we're launching a workstream on sustainability, and I'd love it if you and the ICAEW would get involved and be able to share you're learning? Like Julian Smith’s comment 2 Likes 2 Likes on Julian Smith’s comment 1 Reply 1 Comment on Julian Smith’s comment ------------------- See profile for Francesca SharpStatus is reachable Francesca Sharp Author Technical Lead Climate Change at ICAEW 2d Hi Julian Smith sure send me a message and we can setup some time to chat :) Like Francesca Sharp’s comment ------------------- See profile for Emily McKenzie Emily McKenzie 2nd degree connection 2nd Head of Economics, Analysis and Policy, Dasgupta Review on Economics of Biodiversity at HM Treasury 5d Great move ICAEW to commit to achieve carbon neutrality in 2020. Now to biodiversity..... Like Emily McKenzie’s comment 5 Likes 5 Likes on Emily McKenzie’s comment 1 Reply 1 Comment on Emily McKenzie’s comment ------------------- See profile for Julian Smith Julian Smith 2nd degree connection 2nd Director, memcom executive (senior appointments) and memcom consulting 4d Hear, hear. I'd love to see all sector-leaders commit to a sustainable world, including #biodiversity - because if we think time is running out for the planet, we have just seconds left on the clock for many of our key species... Like Julian Smith’s comment 1 Like 1 Like on Julian Smith’s comment ------------------- See profile for Bernard Lakey Bernard Lakey 2nd degree connection 2nd Financial Controller at Direct Lifts Australia 6d Fantastic goal and one that will be achieved. Now we need this commitment to rub off in the corridors of parliament. Like Bernard Lakey’s comment 2 Likes 2 Likes on Bernard Lakey’s comment ------------------- See profile for Rhiannon Shah Rhiannon Shah 2nd degree connection 2nd Business Lead: Our Planet Team 6d Thank you for joining our film preview today ! As Gillian Tett says... accountants can change the world Like Rhiannon Shah’s comment 3 Likes 3 Likes on Rhiannon Shah’s comment ------------------- See profile for Julia Phillips Julia Phillips 2nd degree connection 2nd Taking time to plan the next steps 6d Francesca what an amazing commitment. So wonderful to see ICAEW leading the pack. Like Julia Phillips’ comment 4 Likes 4 Likes on Julia Phillips’ comment ------------------- See profile for Emma Cohen Emma Cohen 2nd degree connection 2nd Available now | Senior Marketing Manager | Marketing Manager | Communications Manager | Brand Development | Product Marketing | Marketing and Communications Project Management | #ONO | #OpenToWork 6d Huge news - well done ICAEW! 🙌 Like Emma Cohen’s comment 3 Likes 3 Likes on Emma Cohen’s comment ------------------- See profile for Mardi McBrien Mardi McBrien 2nd degree connection 2nd Managing Director 6d Well done ICAEW great leadership for all sorts of membership bodies globally Like Mardi McBrien’s comment 4 Likes 4 Likes on Mardi McBrien’s comment ------------------- See profile for Francis Xaviour Joe, Digitisation of Sustainability ReportingStatus is reachable Francis Xaviour Joe, Digitisation of Sustainability Reporting 1st degree connection 1st GM, ESG & Sustainability Reporting at Accuvio Asia, Africa & Middle East | MIA’s Top 100 Inspirational LinkedIn Icons 6d Excellent leadership. Accountants controlling the purse strings must increasingly come onboard quickly to embrace sustainability as core finance strategy. Like Francis Xaviour Joe, Digitisation of Sustainability Reporting’s comment 3 Likes 3 Likes on Francis Xaviour Joe, Digitisation of Sustainability Reporting’s comment ------------------- See profile for Caroline Kearns BComm ACSI Caroline Kearns BComm ACSI 2nd degree connection 2nd Strategic and Program Manager to Chief Operating Officer 6d Thank you Francesca and for all the work your team do on this important topic in supporting and encouraging ICAEW members Like Caroline Kearns BComm ACSI’S comment 3 Likes 3 Likes on Caroline Kearns BComm ACSI’S comment Feed post
| The text being discussed is available at | https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2020/sep-2020/icaew-our-roadmap-for-carbon-neutrality and |