Sustainability Accounting: The Expansion of Corporate Reporting FLEXCAST

Overview

There is a growing number of corporations and stakeholders of those corporations that believe that, to optimize long run growth, nonfinancial information needs to be reported by corporations. Sustainability accounting is attempting to meet that need by reporting on environmental, social, and governmental factors affecting the corporation’s ability to sustain financial growth over time. With more reporting has come the desire to establish sustainability accounting standards to provide for consistent and comparable information being reported. This course will look at the reasons for the growing call for sustainability reporting and the entities that have been formed to establish standards for sustainability accounting. In the United States, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) was started while the world has seen the development of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). In November 2018, the SASB published 77 standards, providing a complete set of globally applicable industry-specific standards which identify the minimal set of financially material sustainability topics and their associated metrics for the typical company in an industry. The process for establishing the standards, the actual standards, the 11 industries, and the concept of materiality and the Materiality Map used by the SASB will be discussed. The GRI standards will be contrasted to the SASB. A US corporation sustainability report will be reviewed. How an investor might utilize will be discussed.

Highlights

Growing Demand for Sustainability. SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board. Waste Management Sustainability Report. GRI Global Reporting Initiative. UN Standards Development Goals. KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2017. SEC Position. Integrated Reporting. Investors’ Position.

Prerequisites

None.

Designed For

CPAs, CFOs, controllers, financial professionals, and auditors.

Objectives

Discuss the growing interest in sustainability accounting and the opposing views of its objective. Understand how environmental, social, and governmental factors may affect long term financial growth. Explain the SASB process for developing sustainability standards, industry classifications, and establishing which are standards might have a materiality impact on an industry. Differentiate how the Global Reporting Initiative contrasts to the SASB approach. Explain the contents of a selected US corporation sustainability report. Identify in general how an investor might use the information from a sustainability report.

Preparation

None.

Notice

This is a FlexCast (no exam required) and may be viewed only Monday - Saturday, 5am - 5pm PT. You may take up to one year from the date of purchase to complete the course. Pause your FlexCast and resume at a convenient day during the hours above. Partial credit for 2+ credit courses: If you are unable to complete the course in one sitting, partial credit can be awarded (minimum of one credit). To earn the remaining credits, you must return later and start the course from the beginning. Use chat to ask questions of a subject matter expert during the program.