Accountants’ role in helping protect the planet spotlighted at CAPA and CA Sri Lanka’s Accounting Assembly
With climate change continuing to rage on, and humans identified as the biggest culprits behind this unprecedented global catastrophe, the crucial role Accountants can play in protecting the planet, by promoting greener financing and sustainability was highlighted this week.
The largest ever regional hybrid accounting assembly of the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants (CAPA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) hosted in Colombo, was ceremoniously inaugurated on Wednesday, 06th October 2021.
The 20th CAPA Conference, which was hosted alongside CA Sri Lanka’s very own 42nd National Conference of Chartered Accountants revolving around the theme “Heritage – Many Businesses, One Planet” was inaugurated in the presence of a distinguished audience including Mr. Alan Johnson, President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, 2021 Blue Planet Prize Laureate and Vice Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Chen Yugui, President of CAPA and Mr. Brian Blood, Chief Executive of CAPA joined the event virtually, while Mr. Manil Jayesinghe, President of CA Sri Lanka, Mr. Sanjaya Bandara, Vice President of CA Sri Lanka, Mr. Tishan Subasinghe, Chairman of the CAPA and National Conference Main Committee, Mrs. Anoji De Silva, Chairperson of the Conference Technical Committee and Mrs. Dulani Fernando, Chief Executive Officer of CA Sri Lanka joined the event in Colombo. Delegates from over 30 countries connected with the three-day event which concluded on Friday.
Delivering the keynote speech, Dr. Iyad Abumoghli, Founder and Director of the United Nations Environment Programme Faith for Earth Initiative said that the world is facing an unprecedented triple crisis of climate change, degradation of nature and pollution, whilst also experiencing the warmest decade ever recorded in history, apart from an increase in raging forest fires, floods, and sandstorms.
“Humans are the biggest contributors to climate change. Every year we are consuming more than double of what the earth has generated. Currently as of July, we have consumed all that the earth has generated. So, this means, we need almost 2 planets to be able to sustain our living,” he cautioned.
He highlighted that the solution to this is to transform from a brown economy to a green economy. According to Abumoghli, a brown economy, is known to use and abuse nature, whilst the green economy is known to work with nature and provide better opportunities and options for the people and planet.
He proposed that the accounting profession promote the natural capital accounting concept, which integrates nature and the natural resources in the budgeting and accounting of a business. Elaborating further, he said, “the natural accounting concept includes not only the use of raw material but also the impact on nature as part of the accounting system, so it gives an estimated budget for mitigating and avoiding the impact on nature. This is being committed and promoted by a number of countries, while some parliaments have actually mandated this as an important element in their financing system,” he said.
Addressing the delegates who connected from all over the world, Chief Guest Mr. Johnson said that the future will depend on the choices everyone makes. “But as a profession, we can, and we must use what we see now to make informed decisions to build sustainability into the foundational systems and institutions. Because not only is it an incredibly important need for the profession to fulfil its public mandate, and embody a new environmental e