IIRC discussion draft published

The IIRC's discussion paper "Towards Integrated Reporting – a case for global change" has been published for consultation today. This paper presents the rationale for Integrated Reporting and proposals for the development of an International Integrated Reporting Framework. The deadline for providing feedback is Wednesday 14 December 2011. I think it's important that academic views on the IIRC's activities are represented in the consultation process!

Before getting my teeth into the document I had a go at creating a 'wordle' graphical representation of the text. You can find this here: 

One other point I'd like to make at this stage. While a feature of the document and the IIRC website is a plea for responses from a wide range of stakeholders, the mechanism for doing so is very 'closed' - i.e. a form/email to fill in. Responses won't be made public until after the process is over. So, if you want to actually discuss the draft in an open forum - you're out of luck. Unless of course you use the comment feature in this blog...

Are ecosystems the last hope for the world's accountants?

One of the advantages of managing this blog is I get to post some of my own stuff (shameless I know...). I thought it might be interesting to title this post by taking this earlier one and turning it on its head. Ian Thomson and myself have been looking at the wider issue of ecosystems and systems thinking in sustainability accounting, and we produced a presentation (i.e. no paper yet!!) for this year's CSEAR UK conference.

The presentation was entitled "The Other Invisible Hand: Misplaced Faith in Self-Organising Ecosystems". In the session we explored the impact of the nature and scientific origins of self-organising ecosystems and possible consequences for developing sustainable accounting. Within parts of sustainability policy arenas and accounting literature there is a faith in the self-organising properties of ecosystems and nature, which is translated into laissez faire solutions requiring no human governance, assuming nature has her own invisible hand to rectify the follies of humanity. However, self governance can be an equation to make a mathematic model work rather than based on observable natural phenomena.


A major motivation for this session is a recent documentary series by Adam Curtis, called All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. If you missed it, check it out here:

CSEAR Blog Relaunch!

In the wake of the successful CSEAR UK conference, I thought it was worth relaunching the blog, so - here it is, back again, new and improved! The blog will regularly publish information about CSEAR's main activities, including all the international CSEAR conference calls as well as details of new issues of the house journal, Social & Environmental Accountability Journal. I've also set up a link between this blog and CSEAR's Facebook page, so blog posts will be visible there as well.

A further purpose of the blog is to encourage and support debate and discussion within the CSEAR community. If anyone would like to join Shona Russell and myself in managing the blog and contributing material to it - please do let me know.