The Prince of Wales has set in train work to make it easier for
businesses to formally calculate the social costs of their activities.
He has instructed six of the staff in his Charities Office to ‘look at
ways of enabling sustainability to become embedded more effectively in
… accounting in the public and private sectors’.
While the prince may apply the findings in his own commercial ventures,
among them the Duchy Originals company, he made clear that the prime
purpose of the Accounting for Sustainability project was to help
business at large to find ways of presenting externalized costs that do
not at present show up in formal accounts. The team will draw on
National Audit Office expertise and has financial backing from
Aviva, BP, Camelot, HSBC, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Standard
Chartered.
‘In the 20th century, accountancy made a number of modifications to
include new costs which had begun to take on more significance in
modern business: for example, pensions costs are now included,’ said
the prince. ‘In our current century we appear to have reached a point
where further costs need to be measured and accounted for, [such as]
the value of dwindling natural resources and the cost of increasing
atmospheric pollution. At the moment, these costs often do not appear
in anyone’s books.’
Project staff will commission research from the Saïd Business School
into how such costs can be included in published audited accounts,
‘perhaps in standard satellite accounts that are independently
audited’. Kite-marking of companies that practise sustainability
accounting is also under consideration.
