Sustainable business

Shaping the future

Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand recognises that Chartered Accountants and other finance professionals have a key role to play in shaping the future. As professionals, we are tasked with making sense of past performance and also provide insight into what the future might hold.

Accounting for Sustainability. From Sustainability to Business Resilience, a publication from the International Federation of Accountants, clarifies the important role accountants can, and must, play in embracing sustainability to ensure that the organizations they serve are resilient by linking sustainability to a broader business agenda and strategy.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are 17 goals covering all aspects of sustainable development from poverty and climate change to innovation and economic growth. They cover the period from 2016-2030 and all 193 UN member states agreed to them. The SDGs explicitly call on all businesses to apply their creativity and innovation to help solve these sustainable development challenges. They enable leading companies to demonstrate how their business helps to advance sustainable development such as: identifying future business opportunities, enhancing the value of corporate sustainability and strengthening stakeholder relations.

We are members of the Accounting Bodies Network of the Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability Project and the UN Global Compact Network Australia. Through these, we are able to contribute to and leverage useful guidance and resources to help Chartered Accountants play this role.