Marketing academic gives keynote to 'Green' Management Accounting Conference

Dr Rachel Harkness of the Department of Marketing addressed the Management Accounting Research Group Conference at Aston Business School in Birmingham last month. Her keynote lecture, co-written with Professor John Finch, also of the Department of Marketing at Strathclyde, and Dr Susi Geiger, of University College Dublin, as part of on-going Leverhulme-funded research on the marketing of Green Chemistry, was a great hit with the delegates at this annual event, which, this year, was focusing on the topic of sustainability.

Discussing 'Matter Out of Place: Chemical Pollution and Regulation in the North-East Atlantic,' the lecture delivered was a conceptual piece that discussed issues to do with boundaries, process and accounting for the whole life-cycle of chemical products, and these ideas – and the paper's argument for dislodging the certainty of boundaries and yet not discarding their environmental and social importance – was warmly and enthusiastically engaged with by the audience.

A discussion panel on environmental sustainability, socio-economic and ethical concerns followed on the afternoon of the Keynote and, along with her fellow panellists Professor John Burns of Exeter University, Dr Stuart Cooper of Aston, Professor David Owen and Rick Payne of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Dr Harkness was asked to consider what/how accounting and management practice can meaningfully reflect these concerns and seek to have a positive effect on sustainability.

Providing good indication of the tone and ethic of the whole event, this panel was an engaging and thought-provoking exchange, where consensus was that critical thinking and social and environmental responsibility were of upmost importance – particularly in Education (in terms of both the activities of accounting and finance departments within Universities and the teaching of students across Business Schools).

Some interesting leads were mentioned here in relation to HEFCE-funded research on integrated sustainability teaching in Business Schools and also to programmes such as the University of Exeter's 'One Planet' MBA, run in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund. Papers in the panel sessions at the conference included a good spread of both graduate student and more advanced Management Accounting research; the subjects of these presentations often reflecting a cultural sensitivity to the importance of local context in our global world. Both the Management Control Association and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales were well-represented at the conference and were vocal in their support of sustainability and the pursuit of 'Green' Management Accounting.