Speaker. Author.Impact leader.
Founder of Thrive. Accountant to Tech businesses. B Corp certified.
Accountants are key players in catalysing positive change.
How you work with your clients can have a big impact in reaching our collective Net Zero goals. With half our economy supported by small businesses, your role as an accountant can directly influence how your clients structure their businesses to support a Net Zero economy. Best of all, there are practical ways to do this that fit with the way you’re doing business now.
I know James from his service on ACCA’s governing Council, and his concerns about the burning need for a sharper focus on sustainability in business were always ahead of their time”
There’s a business case for Net Zero and the impact you can make.
Watch this video to understand the reasons for adding Net Zero planning into your business advisory toolkit.
If you feel like you don’t know where to start or how to help,you’re in the right place.
My origin story
It was my career as Finance Director in a creative agency that first led me down the path to the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and eventually to Net Zero.
From the FD's chair, I found myself a passionate advocate for driving employee engagement, understanding the role people play in the growth of a business. Research released at the time (around 2009) had proven that commercial success happens as a result of happy, engaged employees. I was asking: how could we inspire and enable a creative team and make this business an amazing place to work?
As a result of that job, I ended up as a judge for the industry awards for 5 years. I had the opportunity to get under the skin of the initiatives that drive commercial outcomes. The businesses getting into the top 100 employer categories were outperforming their peer group by 3.5% per year. Compound that over 30 years and it’s a phenomenal difference in growth.
I learned there doesn’t need to be a trade off between purpose and profit. And actually, there’s a huge body of evidence to say that making a positive impact on your team, your community and the wider world makes a business more successful.
When I established my own business in (DATE) I was introduced to the global goals. That was another lightbulb moment for me. I saw the SDGs as a similar progression to the work I’d undertaken with employee engagement. How do we take our CSR and volunteer days and make it all more meaningful? How do we encourage the best talent to come and work for us? If talent has their head turned, what about customers?
That’s what led me to the 1% pledge, the B1G1 initiative, and ultimately Net Zero. I started with tree planting and offsets, quickly realising that was only the beginning…
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More than simply moving the needle, you can inspire profound change.
SMEs account for 90% of the world's firms and 50% of the global workforce. The more conscious and informed we become as accountants, the more we can perpetuate conscious and informed choices through our clients. Every little impact you have propagates.
See your impact journey
You already have a range of hidden superpowers to meet the challenge.Learn how you can use them to inspire change.
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