Press Release

Start Valuing The Things That Really Matter Says Gore

17 August 2007

With possibly only 10 years left until the world reaches an irreversible climate change tipping point, accountants should take a fresh look at the way in which they account for corporate environmental impacts – especially carbon emissions, former US Vice President Al Gore told 400 delegates at a high-profile ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) event in Hong Kong last week  (August 9th). In a wide-ranging and challenging speech Mr Gore set out his vision of a world in which politicians, regulators, companies and professional associations work together for a common goal.

Politicians, he said, need to find a new way of talking – they need a shared understanding that, without concerted action, it will soon be too late to stop major climatic changes which may take millions of years to reverse.  They need to sanction regulators to create cross-border level playing fields in respect of corporate emission regulation, including the establishment of compulsory regional/global carbon trading regimes.  At the corporate and personal level Mr Gore pointed to the need for organisations and individuals to accept responsibility for their own actions and to develop longer-term thinking. Short-term time horizons, he pointed out, deceive us into thinking things are OK and encourage us to continue with what eventually transpires to be self-destructive activity.

Mr Gore acknowledged the leadership role that ACCA had played in bringing sustainability issues on to the mainstream accounting agenda, but said that professional accounting associations such as ACCA also had clear societal responsibilities. Continuing to measure and record only what is conventionally regarded as having value (or as being a liability) will prevent accountants (and hence industry and its regulators) from grasping the environmental nettle and will only further contribute to the constrained thinking that has brought the world to its current, parlous environmental state. Accounting standard-setters and professional associations should focus their thinking on fuller carbon emission disclosures and the development of methods for fully internalising carbon related assets, liabilities and costs.

Thanking the former Vice President for his inspirational speech, ACCA Chief Executive Allen Blewitt committed ACCA to further work in the areas of sustainability reporting and accounting for externalities such as carbon emissions.

Professor K C Chan, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of the Hong Kong SAR applauded Mr Gore’s work in promoting critical reassessment of approaches to environmental management and regulation and said that the HK SAR was ready to play its part also.