related documents
see also...
top stories
Event highlights
A presentation by Vice President Al Gore - 9 August 2007, Conrad Hong Kong
Start valuing the things that really matter says Gore
With possibly only 10 years left until the world reaches an irreversible climate change tipping point, accountants should take a fresh look at the way in which they account for corporate environmental impacts - especially carbon emissions, former US Vice President Al Gore told 400 delegates at a high-profile ACCA event in Hong Kong on Thursday 9 August.
In a wide ranging and challenging speech, Vice President Gore set out his vision of a world in which politicians, regulators, companies and professional associations work together for a common goal.
Politicians, he said, need to find a new way of talking - they need a shared understanding that, without concerted action, it will be too late to stop major climatic changes which may take millions of years to reverse. They need to sanction regulators to create cross-border level playing fields in respect of corporate emission regulation, including the establishment of compulsory regional/global carbon trading regimes.
At the corporate and personal level, Vice President Gore pointed to the need for organisations and individuals to accept responsibility for their own actions and to develop longer term thinking. Short term time horizons, he pointed out, deceive us into thinking things are OK and encourage us to continue with what eventually transpires to be self-destructive activity.
Vice President Gore acknowledged the leadership role which ACCA had played in bringing sustainability issues on to the mainstream accounting agenda, but said that professional accounting associations such as ACCA also had clear societal responsibilities.
Continuing to measure and record only what is conventionally regarded as having value (or as being a liability) will prevent accountants (and hence industry and its regulators) from grasping the environmental nettle and will only further contribute to the constrained thinking that has brought the world to its current, parlous environmental state.
Accounting standard setters and professional associations should focus their thinking on fuller carbon emission disclosures and the development of methods for fully internalising carbon related assets, liabilities and costs.
Thanking the Vice President for his insirational speech, ACCA chief executive Allen Blewitt committed ACCA to further work in the areas of sustainability reporting and accounting for externalities such as carbon emissions.
Professor K C Chan, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of Hong Kong SAR, applauded Mr Gore's work in promoting critical reassessment of approaches to environmental management and regulation and said that HK was ready to play its part.
To view a selection of photographs from the event, including Vice President Gore, ACCA members and distinguished guests, please visit the 'See Also' section on the left-hand side of this page.