Sustainable accounting activity

Ian Thomson, Department of Accounting and Finance, chaired a plenary session at the Asian Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting conference in Sydney in July, where the presentation of a film - Accounting for Biodiversity - was premiered. He was involved in the writing and production of this film with a group of interdisciplinary academics led by Professor Jan Bebbington, University of St Andrews. The film can be viewed here. This film is part of an ongoing programme to develop methods of low carbon intellectual renewal.

Also in Sydney, Ian presented a paper, jointly authored with Shona Russell and Colin Dey, entitled External Problematising Accounts: Exploring the Potential of Shadow Accounts.

Ian is to guest edit, together with Maria Dyball, a Special Issue of Accounting Education: International Journal on Accounting Education and Sustainability. The call for papers will be issued soon with a publication date of around 2012. A special edition of Social and Environmental Accountability Journal of Accounting Education and Sustainability, edited by Ian Thomson and Lorna Stevenson, will be published in September/October 2010. It will include their article 'Future Directions in Sustainable Accounting Education'.

Ian has been appointed to the Sustainable Development Commission's Fourth Assessment expert stakeholder group on Governance and Performance Measurement and has been appointed as the business school representative on the University's new Environment and Social Responsibility Committee.

This month, Ian has had a paper, 'Sustainable Accounting in the Public Sector: Exploring the Impact of Institutional Contexts' (jointly written with Dave Owen, Suzanna Grubnic, Georgios Georgakapolous) accepted for presentation at the International Conference of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research taking place at the University of St Andrews. Together with Professor Rob Gray, he will be running a research master class on scenarios and sustainable accountability at the conference.