Media Release

December 3 2008

Businesses called to account

UniSA hosts the 7th Australasian Conference on Social and Environmental Accounting Research A conference to be held at the University of South Australia this week will examine the way businesses account for their impact on society and the environment.

The 7th Australasian Conference on Social and Environmental Accounting Research will bring together 70 of the world’s leading experts in the field to consider how organisations are responding to calls for greater accountability and improved management decision making in the face of some of the world’s biggest challenges, such as climate change and the global financial crisis.

The conference, to be held at UniSA’s City West campus from December 7 to 9, is hosted by the University’s Centre for Accounting, Governance and Sustainability (CAGS), established in 2007 to promote a strong scholastic research performance in accounting.

Conference chair, Professor of Accounting and Director of CAGS, Roger Burritt, said sustainability accounting and reporting have come to represent the most recent thinking about how to integrate social, environmental, governance and economic impacts of organisational activities.

“The notion of the triple bottom line pervades practice in the business, public, and not for profit sectors and provides the best known area of social and environmental accounting research,” Prof Burritt said.

“With the wide extent of financial distress recently falling upon the banking, insurance and commercial sectors of the world economy, and the calls for economies to re-modernise and to take on board social and environmental responsibility, there is no better time to become familiar with ways in which social and environmental accounting can and does contribute towards pulling the world back from the abyss.”

Keynote speakers at the conference include Professor Katsuhiko Kokubu from Kobe University; Professor Lee Parker from UniSA; Professor Dr Stefan Schaltegger from Leuphana University, Germany; and Associate Professor Carol Tilt from Flinders University.

“Research and scholarship in social and environmental accounting is increasing the rigour of analysis, broadening awareness of these critical issues, providing novel accounts of links between organisations and social and environmental matters, showing the way forward with ethical investments and low carbon economy innovations,” Prof Burritt said.

For more information about conference, click here.

Click here for news about UniSA’s Centre for Accounting, Governance and Sustainability.

The main sponsors of the 7th Australasian Conference on Social and Environmental Accounting Research are the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the University of South Australia and the University of Sydney.