Why accountants are the new cool

      In these challenging times, accountants are the new cool. Why? You can’t manage what you don't measure – and accountants are great at measuring things.
      In fields as diverse as industrial resource efficiency, mitigating the adverse effects of farming on the environment, erosion and sediment control on big construction sites, integrated watershed management, quadruple bottom line monitoring (across all four wellbeings; social, cultural, economic and environmental) and sustainable urban infrastructure, I’ve found accountants to be key people.
      Globally, the profession is developing business metrics and assessment and reporting tools for environmental issues that affect the profitability of everyone from farmers to financiers. Accountants have the ability, for example, to help:

• manufacturers to quantify their resource use, identify waste and measure waste minimization and more efficient resource use – and the resulting profits
• farmers to assess their carbon intensity and account for nitrogen, water and other inputs that affect the quality of rural environments and water ways
• architects and builders of public, commercial and domestic buildings to make the case for sustainability retrofits to save energy and water, and to prepare cost-benefit analyses to justify increased capital investment in more sustainable buildings and services by assessing their ongoing operational efficiencies
• infrastructure operators to assess the economic and other benefits of more sustainable infrastructure choices
• key emitters and absorbers of carbon to play their role in the carbon markets
• all organizations to assess the energy (carbon), water, materials and labor intensity of their products and services (including full life-cycle analysis), a key step in the drive for higher productivity
• all sectors prepare integrated monitoring reports as will be increasingly demanded by informed consumers and purchasers of services and supplies, including by governments in emerging economies such as China and India which will become growing markets for the West
• develop innovative approaches to lead the way for businesses that embrace sustainability in these and other emerging fields.

      Most of the world’s business is done by small firms that employ 10 people or fewer. They are not going to prepare separate sustainability or environmental reports, far less the integrated monitoring reports that are now required in some jurisdictions such as the South Africa Stock Exchange – but nearly all of them engage accountants for their end of year tax requirements. It is overwhelmingly likely that their accountant will be the only professional adviser these small firms engage.
      Accountants that can advise their clients on efficiencies delivered by sustainability initiatives are invaluable: such initiatives may be the only thing that will help large and small firms alike to stay afloat as the global economic context remains challenging and unpredictable. For example, accountants can work out the payback period on the hire, lease or purchase of more fuel- and energy-efficient vehicles, premises or equipment; or on the changeover to different products and services: they’re are likely to be the closest thing to a sustainability adviser many firms will ever see.
      Accountants have vital skills for better-informed business management processes that will deliver more strategic value for firms and more sustainable development for nations.
      Smart businesses will be asking their accountants to work in new ways that deliver better bottom line value and ongoing viability.