Module Directory

All too often, and for far too long, notions of what sustainability is and its implications for organisations and its decision-makers have remained vague, spurring little in terms of substantial change. This potentially allowed the notion of 'financial sustainability' to maintain its prominence despite the rising concerns relating to climate change and environmental damage, threats to biodiversity, nature, health, and livelihoods. In parallel, citizens and communities face significant, and often global, political, social, economic, cultural, and geopolitical upheavals which puts into question, amongst others, the exercise of democratic principles, aspirations of equality of opportunity, social mobility, and access to basic standards and rights as individuals, employees. Calls for greater accountability and effective response to have led to the development of practices and techniques aimed at addressing sustainability in a multi-faceted way. This not only concerns for-profit entities but also public and third sector organisations. To this end, there is a greater imperative for students to be conversant with the different existing and emerging models of sustainability accounting, accountability and management.

 Therefore, the module aims to contribute to the students' understanding of sustainability accounting, accountability, and management (SAAM) practices that recently emerged, or are being developed, to address this unfolding global crisis, primarily from an organisational perspective. The module introduces a range of existing and emerging SAAM practices, such as climate accounting (budgeting and investment), United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), sustainability reporting, climate finance, circular economy, sustainability-related regulations, and other reporting requirements. The module will also draw on practitioner expertise from guest lecturers.

The aims of this module are:

• To provide students with wider understanding of the role of accounting and accountability in SDGs and sustainability within a changing global environment.


• To enhance student’s understanding of academic research on climate change and socio-economic inequality in the field of accounting, finance and management and how it pertains to the real-life context.


• To support and encourage education and learning on UN SDGs, circular economy, accountability and stakeholder engagement.


• To make students aware of contemporary developments in sustainability-related rules, regulations, frameworks and reporting practices.


• To facilitate critical, analytical thinking as a foundation for students’ personal and professional development.


• To contribute to students’ understanding of social and policy implications of climate change, social impact, crisis of inequality and management thereof.

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Explain the role and importance of sustainability accounting, accountability and management practices


2. Demonstrate an understanding of contemporary developments in climate change related rules, regulations, frameworks and sustainability reporting.


3. Explain and analyse the relevance of UN SDGs, circular economy, social responsibility and accountability and stakeholder engagement.


4. Evaluate the different applications of climate budgeting and investment in both public and private sector organisations.


5. Evaluate contemporary perspectives on SAAM research, practice and policy (globally) (as provided by two guest lectures).


6. Develop research skills and methods to conduct research on SAAM practices.

Syllabus

• Sustainability and the role of SAAAM practice.


• Corporate social and environmental accounting.


• Public sector climate accountability (budgeting and investment).


• Sustainability reporting frameworks (CSR/Sustainability reporting - GRE, IR, ESG).


• UN SDGs (SDG Accounting).


• Guest lecture one.


• Climate finance and stakeholder engagement.


• Circular economy, responsible supply chain and social impacts.


• Addressing social inequalities (labour rights, modern slavery) - accountability and management.


• Guest lecture two

This module will be delivered via:

• One 1-hour lecture per week
• One 1-hour seminar per week

Two of the lectures will be two guest lectures from industry. The lecturers will present the key themes during the module and enable students to engage with the relevant literature for discussion during the seminar. 

Students are expected to participate actively in seminars either by leading discussions on the case studies provided during the seminars or responding to issues raised by teaching staff or peers. 

See further details of the learning and teaching methods will be provided on a separate file posted/published on Moodle (Module Outline, Seminars activities and Reading list).