HRH Prince Charles & Accounting for Sustainability

HRH Prince Charles has launched his accounting for sustainability project. Launching the project he said, "There was a time when we could say that there was either a complete
lack of knowledge, or at least room for doubt, about the consequences
for our planet of our actions. That time has gone. We now know
all too clearly what we are actually doing and that we need to do
something about it urgently. Better accounting must be part of that
process."

The aim of the project to develop systems to help organisations to measure more
effectively the environmental and social costs of their actions. Stage
one of the project has been a review of the current state of play in
the measurement and reporting of organisational sustainability in the
UK and internationally.

The research to date has identified a
number of trends. There is clearly a growing awareness of the need to
preserve the environment, and considerable strategic commitment in both
the public and private sectors to adopting the principles of
sustainability. There are however relatively few practical mechanisms
for managers to use to translate strategic sustainability vision into
operational reality.

The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability
Project will develop a range of measures to help organisations embed
sustainability into their decision-making processes and report their
performance in this respect more clearly and consistently.

Over
the course of the next year the project team will work with a variety
of organisations to ensure that the approach developed is effective and
adds genuine value to business processes.

The initiative was launched at St James’s Palace, London to an audience of 200 business leaders,
representatives from the voluntary sector, faith leaders and
politicians. There were also speaches by  The Prime Minister, Lord Browne, Chairman of BP, and The
Bishop of London.

The Accounting for Sustainability Website was launched at the same time as the initiative and contains many resources that will be helpful to business.

Article Contributed by Ethical Design Lab