Agenda

Thursday 30 September 2010 - Conference

8:30 Registration and coffee

9:00 Welcome

Professor Mark Gabbott, Executive Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University
Professor Suzanne Benn, Education for Sustainability, Director, ARIES, Head, Graduate School of the Environment, Macquarie University

Introduction from the Chair

Associate Professor Lorne Cummings, Accounting, Macquarie University

INDUSTRY PROGRESSION: DRIVERS TO INCLUDE SUSTAINABILITY THROUGHOUT THE INDUSTRY

9:15 KEYNOTE: An assessment of key internal and external drivers shaping professional accounting bodies' sustainability agendas

• How accounting bodies engage with and respond to the complexities of sustainability
• The international drivers of convergence in financial and non-financial disclosure - the role to be played by professional accounting bodies
• The function of professional education and accreditation within an education continuum directed at the sustainability-based skilling of the accounting profession
• Technical skills vs leadership, personal effectiveness and business skills - the attributes and 'tool-kit' of the future accountant

John Purcell, Policy Adviser Corporate Regulation, Professional Standards, Strategy Group, CPA Australia

10:00 Driving shareholder value through sustainable business practice

• Impact of social and environmental mega-trends on business
• Growing response of key business stakeholders
• Capital markets response - impact on value, and future access to capital
• Role of the finance team in embedding sustainable business practices throughout the organisation

Nick Ridehalgh, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia

10:40 Morning tea

11:00 The Global Reporting Initiative: capturing the full corporate picture to develop the corporate strategy and reduce costs

• Understanding and measuring the commercial value of sustainability
• Creating consistency: standardising for value creation and reliability to minimise ambiguous indicators of market value
• Factoring sustainable values into financial results: triple bottom line reporting that contribute to critical corporate decisions
• Changes and developments in measuring techniques
• GRI initiatives and international professional bodies

Victoria Whitaker, Network Manager, Global Reporting Initiative Australia

11:40 Corporate social responsibility: future strategic plans and disclosing the non-financials

• The key role for accountancy in reporting governance, incorporating sustainability into the business plan and developing a broad-based sustainable performance disclosure system
• Benefits of reporting and evaluating the non-financials and applying assurance and credibility to sustainability reports
• A look at the challenges: understanding corporate responsibility, addressing risks and opportunities to maintain the competitive advantage
• The evolving role of accountants: interdisciplinary and non-financial skills and adapting existing accountancy strategies

Richard Boele, Founder and Managing Director, Banarra

12:20 Lunch

1:20 CASE STUDY: Grappling with water accounting

• Background on the development of water accounting
• Learnings from the AWAS pilot program
• Next steps in water accounting

Sean Hanley, Manager, Water Accounting Standards Board Office, Bureau of Meteorology

EMPLOYABILITY AND MULTI-DISCIPLINARY SKILLS IN AN INCREASINGLY SUSTAINABILITY-FOCUSED INDUSTRY

2:00 KEYNOTE: Sustainability and accountancy materials

• Advancing the professional and educational materials
• Learning from the research
• Teaching the global accountant
• Future of the accounting industry: integration of sustainability into professional learning qualifications

Professor James Guthrie, Head of Academic Relations, The Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia

2:40 Afternoon tea

3:00 The employable accountant: evolving to changing client demands

• Skills for the future accountant: the technical and non-technical skills as demanded by the employer
• Threshold Learning Outcomes for all Australian accounting Bachelor and Master coursework degrees
• The role of sustainability in the threshold learning outcomes
• Rewriting the notes: revising textbooks and lecture notes to include sustainability issues

Professor Phil Hancock, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning, UWA Business School

3:40 PANEL: Producing the globally employable accountant

• Rewriting the curriculum: interdisciplinary skills and turning the classroom into “the field”
• Providing students with real-work experiences: the sink-or-swim unpaid internship
• How can sustainable courses offer a competitive advantage?
• Drivers and barriers for sustainability in the curriculum and accreditation criteria
• Integrating client-needs and firm-demands into the coursework
• Will market demand for sustainable accounting drive change?
• Industry needs from universities
• The role for professional associations to facilitate change

Associate Professor Lorne Cummings, Accounting, Macquarie University
Nick Ridehalgh, Partner, Sustainability & Climate Change, PWC

For speaker updates, visit
www.informa.com.au/sustainableaccountancy

5:00 Closing remarks from the Chair