The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project

Many organisations recognise the risks and opportunities that the sustainability challenge poses for their long-term success, but often struggle to find the right tools to respond effectively. The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) brings organisations together to develop practical guidance and tools to enable environmental and social performance to be better connected with strategy and financial performance, and thereby embedded into day-to-day operations and decision making: As His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales said at its launch, “to help ensure that we are not battling to meet 21st century challenges with, at best, 20th century decision making and reporting systems."

The initial outputs and activities from the Project included:

Guidance and tools to help organisations embed sustainability into day-to-day decision making.
A reporting model, the “Connected Reporting Framework”, to demonstrate how all areas of organisational performance can be presented in a connected way, reflecting the organisation’s strategy and the way it is managed.
The establishment of the A4S Accounting Bodies Network, an international group of accounting bodies brought together to collaborate on accounting for sustainability, and of the A4S Forum Principles.

More recently, A4S has released the connected reporting ‘how to’ guide which incorporates three industry examples and includes an on-line interactive version containing examples of real-life reporting. It has also launched a book of case studies, “Accounting for Sustainability: Practical Insights” which presents examples of how several leading public and private sector organisations have used accounting for sustainability tools and principles to embed sustainability into their mainstream decision-making and reporting.

Coming Soon…

A4S is currently collaborating with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and other global organisations towards establishing an " International Integrated Reporting Committee" (IIRC).

In autumn 2010 A4S will also be launching a community website in collaboration with the International Federation of Accountants. This will be a vibrant community for anyone with an interest in accounting for sustainability to discuss and share ideas.

For further information on the Project’s work and how to get involved, click here.