Takashi Asano: Sustainability and the Future of Accounting

2024/02/08

This is my third year serving as a judge for the Nikkei Integrated Report Awards. Some of the reports under review are massive works exceeding 100 pages; I can feel the passion and effort of the creators, and I look forward to them every year. Among them, what I look forward to most is the "Top Message." I am impressed by the way top management speaks passionately about elements essential to corporate sustainability, such as the struggles and innovations in organizational management, long-term vision, investment in growth, improving human resource productivity, and sharing awareness with employees. These messages from top management are filled with valuable life lessons, and I personally gain new insights from them.

In recent years, I have noticed an increase in descriptions related to sustainability even in top messages. It is also true that such information and data lack clear preparation standards like accounting standards, posing challenges for reliability and comparability. Furthermore, because stakeholder interests are diverse, the burden of information disclosure is increasing. Nevertheless, companies are actively disclosing information to meet stakeholder expectations. I also see a stance where companies grasp social changes through stakeholder feedback, discuss their own roles and contributions to society, and reflect those results in their disclosures. Information disclosure has become a powerful tool for promoting transformation in corporate behavior, rather than just a reporting obligation.

In recent years, there have been attempts to convert sustainability information into monetary terms and incorporate it into financial information. For example, impact-weighted accounting is an approach that measures positive and negative impacts on three elements—products and services, operations and employment, and the environment—and reflects these monetized values in financial statements. Current accounting has limitations in that it cannot sufficiently incorporate environmental issues or record human capital as an asset on the balance sheet. Additionally, calculated profits are treated as belonging to shareholders rather than all stakeholders. However, impact-weighted accounting internalizes externalities such as environmental issues, considers all stakeholders, and emphasizes social value in addition to economic value. By placing sustainability at the center, the challenges of accounting are brought to light. Sustainability holds the potential to transform the accounting framework itself in the future and may contribute to the evolution of accounting.