The European Union’s new Artificial Intelligence Act brings opportunities for businesses but will not be without challenge, writes Keith Power Just seven percent of Irish businesses currently have governance structures in place for artificial intelligence (AI) or generative AI (GenAI). Despite this, the overwhelming majority (91%) believe that GenAI will increase cybersecurity risks in the year ahead. This is according to PwC’s latest GenAI Business Leaders survey, published in June 2024.  The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act) is a sweeping new regulation aimed at ensuring that businesses have the appropriate AI governance and control mechanisms in place to deliver safe and secure outcomes.  Indeed, a large majority (84%) of our survey respondents welcomed the introduction of the EU AI Act, saying regulation is necessary to prevent the potential negative impact of AI in the future.  The new EU AI Act will also bring challenges, however. Its aim is to protect businesses, consumers and citizens in the EU from potential risks associated with AI in terms of health, safety, fundamental rights, democracy, rule of law and the environment.  By introducing standards and providing legal certainty, the Act also seeks to foster innovation, growth and competitiveness in the EU’s internal market.  It is the EU’s first comprehensive legal framework for AI and will level the playing field for businesses using the technology.  The Act adopts a risk-based approach, with its biggest compliance requirements applying to “high risk” AI systems.  These requirements include addressing data governance concerns, mitigating bias, ensuring transparency and implementing a system of quality management.  The Act also requires that users must be informed when they are interacting with chatbots, and that any AI-generated content must be clearly identifiable as such.   Several specific risks are particular to the EU AI Act, including failure to identify all uses of AI across a business as well as the potential for the inaccurate risk classification of AI uses.  The Act also obliges organisations to assess all of their use cases for AI. This may prove an onerous and time-consuming task given the dispersed nature of the use of AI in many companies. The risk of misclassification is high as risk classifications may change as an organisation’s use of AI evolves over time.  This necessitates the implementation of appropriate ongoing governance and control procedures to maintain compliance, bringing its own challenges. There is also a risk that the focus on compliance may lead to a drag on innovation.  The nuanced nature of some of the language used in the Act, coupled with risk classifications and role designations being subject to change, may prove problematic for some organisations.  The use of AI systems by third parties acting on behalf of organisations may also cause a degree of complexity.  There is much to be considered by Irish businesses to ensure they will be compliant with the new EU AI Act.  It will bring competitive opportunities, but complying with the new regulations will be a complex process. Keith Power is a Partner with PwC Ireland *Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column published in the August/September 2024 issue of Accountancy Ireland are the author’s own. The views of contributors to Accountancy Ireland may differ from official Institute policies and do not reflect the views of Chartered Accountants Ireland, its Council, its committees, or the editor.

Numra co-founder David Kearney, FCA, sees a world of potential in the advent of AI for accountants who can now expect to see their work move up the value chain David Kearney vividly recalls the release of the first version of ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, by US tech firm OpenAI in November 2022. A Chartered Accountant, entrepreneur and self-confessed “techie,” Kearney had sold Peblo, his first start-up, just months earlier and was on the look-out for ideas for a new venture with global potential. “That first ChatGPT release was really the first time I’d come across the concept and capabilities of generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs),” Kearney says. “It was all I could think about at the time. I remember spending a full week of evenings staying up late just playing with ChatGPT, getting to know it, reading all about GenAI and LLMs and learning about how it all works. I was fascinated.” Almost immediately, based on his own experience as a Chartered Accountant, Kearney could see a potential commercial application for the technology in the professional field he was most familiar with. “There are literally dozens of use cases out there for GenAI. The one I zeroed in on was accountancy,” he explains.  Kearney established Numra in August 2023 and, alongside his co-founder Conor Digan, began to develop an AI-powered automation platform for finance teams.  Numra closed a €1.5 million seed funding round in December led by Elkstone Partners, the early-stage venture capital firm, and released the first version of “Mary,” its AI assistant for finance teams. Numra’s AI platform is aimed primarily at mid-sized companies with in-house finance teams processing high-volume transactions. “One of the biggest things Mary can help these teams with is workflow automation. She excels at repetitive tasks, such as invoice processing, three-way matching, payments and reconciliations,” Kearney explains. “If we take accounts payable as an example, Mary can identify an invoice from an email, extract the required invoice data and enter it into the accounting system. She can then send the invoice to whomever needs to approve it and, from there, she can execute the payment.” Kearney says Mary has been designed to behave like a “real-life team member.” She can be trained up on existing company processes and can interact with communication platforms already in use, such as email, Microsoft Teams and Slack.  “You onboard Mary, just like a normal team member. You train her on your internal processes, you give her access to your systems and then get her to start helping you with your workload,” he says. “She can manage complex tasks like answering vendor queries and performing detailed cost allocations, improving over time through user feedback. “That’s really the beauty of GenAI. It has this capability to ingest and process vast amounts of unstructured data and take on tasks that were previously too complex to automate.” The result, Kearney says, is that the role of the Chartered Accountant will be elevated with a new focus on higher-value activities that require strategic thinking and creativity. “There has been quite a lot of fear mongering around how AI is going to impact jobs in the future, including jobs in the accounting profession,” he says. “That’s kind of understandable, but AI actually represents more of an opportunity than a risk for accountants and other professions. I think it should be embraced.” Kearney began his own career as a Chartered Accountant as an undergraduate studying commerce at UCD. He undertook a one-year placement with PwC and went on to train in the firm’s audit department. “The Chartered Accountant qualification had been on my radar for a long time and I specialised in accounting in my final year at college to get the CAP1 exemption,” he explains. “I always had a very strong interest in business and entrepreneurship and I felt that the Chartered Accountant qualification would be a really good launchpad for my career. It’s very dynamic and it gives you a lot of career options.”  After qualifying, Kearney moved to southeastern Australia in 2018 where he spent three-and-a-half years in Melbourne working for large-scale organisations like PZ Cussons, RACV and National Australia Bank.  “I worked in finance departments, mainly in financial planning and analysis. I had an amazing time and built up some great experience in commercial roles, but it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to do something for myself,” he says. After returning to Ireland with his partner Grace in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kearney hit upon the idea for Peblo, his first venture.  Peblo was a financing platform for content creators and influencers. Kearney established the start-up in late 2020 with co-founder Jake Browne and sold Peblo less than two years later to Wayflyer, the Irish-owned e-commerce funding platform. “Peblo was a bit of a crazy idea. It was an invoice factoring company for influencers and their talent agencies.  We were basically buying sponsorship invoices from influencers, so they could get paid sooner for sponsored work for brands. It took off. It grew legs really quickly and we sold in early 2022.” Peblo’s rapid growth and early acquisition was like “lightning in a bottle,” Kearney says now. “It’s rare enough that a start-up would scale that quickly and attract interest from a buyer,” he says. “It was good timing, a good value proposition. Sometimes things just work out.” Peblo may have taken off at lightning speed, but Kearney’s interest in technology goes right back to childhood. “One of my earliest memories is of my grandad’s Apple Macintosh computer. That was back in the early nineties. I was glued to the thing every time we visited and he ended up gifting it to me before I had even started primary school.  “I must have been about four and I still remember the excitement. Since then, I’ve been a bit of an early adopter of new technology. I love trying new things. Technology has always been a big part of my life.” Now, with Numra’s seed funding round secured, Kearney has ambitious plans for the fledgling venture. “We’ll use the funding to accelerate customer acquisition in the US and to invest further in product development,” he says. “Our main target market will be the finance teams in mid-sized organisations. These teams often have too much work and too few heads. They are the most likely to recognise, and benefit from, this kind of AI-enabled workflow automation from the get-go.” For Chartered Accountants fearful that the advent of such automated financial platforms could upend the profession, Kearney says the critical role the profession plays across all sectors will not be replaced. Rather, it will evolve. “The data entry, the document processing and the ‘number-crunching’ is going to go away. AI can do all of that better than we can,” he says. “AI is very good at doing a lot of the time-consuming work people don’t tend to enjoy and that is a positive for Chartered Accountants who can instead start to focus on more valuable strategic work. “Ultimately, I think we can expect to see the day-to-day work of Chartered Accountants move away from ‘the doing’ and more towards orchestrating and reviewing.”

Artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era of tech-enabled efficiency in many sectors, but its widespread adoption also throws up ethical dilemmas. Dr Susan McKeever digs into the details Dr. Susan McKeever is Head of Discipline for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Technological University Dublin’s School of Computer Science. Here, McKeever talks to Accountancy Ireland about the benefits AI is bringing to sectors reliant on data and how regulators, Chartered Accountants and other professions must ensure its ethical adoption as it continues to evolve at a rapid pace. How is the emergence of AI impacting the world of accounting and other professions and sectors? Any profession, function or industry reliant on large amounts of data and repetitive data-related tasks traditionally carried out by people will be impacted by the advent of AI, if they are not being impacted already. These repetitive tasks might involve data entry, data assessment and the generation of reports and correspondence based on this data. AI is very “friendly” to taking over these kinds of tasks. It is really good at getting to grips with a lot of data, interpreting and analysing this data and generating knowledge from it.  The medical sector is one example of an AI-friendly sector, as is the legal sector and insurance. Accountancy is, in a sense, data-driven, but uses a very specific kind of data that needs to be assessed and interpreted, so it is quite specialist.  You can train AI to do simple, repetitive, data-related tasks in accounting. It won’t get tired and it won’t forget what it has already learned.  You can continue to re-train AI as the world moves along, or as the situation changes, and it will continue to build on its existing knowledge and become more and more intelligent. People are excited about the emergence of AI, but also fearful – is this fear well-founded? One of the fears surrounding AI is the general concept that it will “take over” in certain fields. I do believe that the widespread uptake of AI across industries will displace certain kinds of repetitive jobs further down the value chain – the kind of roles that can easily be automated.  The silver lining – and I do truly believe this – is that, as a result, we will see an uptick in higher-value roles. If you take accountancy, we will likely see a shift away from the very granular, detail-driven examination of individual transactions, for example.  Instead, with AI gathering and analysing this data, the accountant will be able to focus on higher-value work, spotting interesting patterns or anomalies of immediate value to their organisation. My advice to accountants, as with all professions, is to go with it. AI is here to stay.  ChatGPT really seeded the concept of AI in the public imagination. It is just one of the larger language models out there, but it just happens to be the one that has really landed in the public consciousness. You have all sorts of people already using ChatGPT to write letters, draft CVs and so on. Change is inevitable. The widespread use of AI is inevitable. My advice to all professionals is to adapt and prepare. Re-train or upskill if you need to. Try not to resist it too much.  What else should we be concerned about when it comes to the widespread adoption of AI? There is a fear out there that AI will start to make decisions we, as humans, used to own.  What is really important here – and this needs to be enshrined in legislation – is that, at all times, humans must be responsible for any decisions made.  So, while AI may be by your side, acting as an “intelligent” support to you in your work as an accountant, you – the human – must always be responsible for any decisions made.  Once you move away from this principle, you enter problematic territory. AI must be accountable to humans. People must maintain ownership of any and all decisions made, always. We train AI based on existing data and data sets – does this carry its own risk? In AI, machine learning models are trained using previous examples. This subset of AI uses algorithms to interpret large amounts of data. It learns from experience. So, if you use a machine learning model to train an AI algorithm to recognise suspicious transactions, for example, you might give it a dataset of 1,000 transactions in which 100 are suspicious. The model will start to figure out the pattern of what makes a transaction suspicious where a human might not have been able to decipher the “rules” underpinning these suspicious transactions.  If you train your AI algorithm based on 1,000 transactions, it might get a certain level of detail. If you up this training to a larger dataset comprising 100,000 examples, your AI algorithm will start to get really good at recognising the patterns in suspicious transactions.  One issue with this kind of machine learning is bias. If you are training your AI algorithm on what has gone before, you are also embedding biases that have existed over time. You are enshrining the world as it is, or was, into the trained examples you use. You have to be very careful that you do this well.  Already, we have seen how the use of AI-driven CV evaluation systems has brought bias to the hiring process based on race, gender, age and other factors. It is something we need to be very aware of. Are we doing enough to regulate and legislate for the safe and ethical use of AI now and in the future? The effective regulation of AI is something I feel very strongly about. This technology, like so many others, is already shaping our society and will continue to do so in the future. Our legislation is lagging behind the rapid evolution and deployment of AI in Ireland and across the world. We are behind the wave, and this is a problem. In the European Union, the Digital Service Act came into full effect in February and the Artificial Intelligence Act is also coming down the line. Its aim is to ensure that AI systems placed on the European market, and used in the EU, are safe and respect fundamental rights and EU values. These regulations are welcome, but their introduction is too slow. It is not keeping pace with AI. Our legislators are falling behind, and this has to be addressed. Otherwise, we could be looking at a society that is framed by technology instead of the democratic and legislative code that should prevail. This is not to paint an entirely negative picture. AI can be used for so much good. There is so much to be positive about in this extraordinary technology. It is up to us to make sure that it is used for good, however, and that the necessary controls are in place to make sure that we continue to have the kind of society we want. To do this, the legislation needs to get in front of the technology, and this is something we need to prioritise today. 

Artificial intelligence has the potential to usher in a bright new era for Chartered Accountants who could enjoy an elevated role in business and finance Having recently closed a €60 million funding round, AccountsIQ founder and Chief Executive Tony Connolly, FCA, is preparing for significant investment in artificial intelligence (AI), which will, he says, allow the Dublin-headquartered tech venture to “shape the finance function of the future.” The Series C funding from Axiom Equity, a London-based growth fund, has come at the “perfect inflection point” for AccountsIQ, Connolly says. “We’ve just hit a critical milestone with over 1,000 customers and users in 80 countries and now we’re poised to take AccountsIQ to the next level,” he says. The investment will allow AccountsIQ to leverage AI tools into practical, easy-to-adopt services for finance teams, Connolly says. The firm will also use the funding to double its headcount to 200 people in Ireland and other markets. It is an exciting time for AccountsIQ, which was launched in 2004 by Connolly, with founding members Darren Donohue and Gavin McGahey on board. By that time, Connolly had qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and then studied systems analysis and design at Trinity College Dublin. It was while working in practice consulting, designing complex finance systems for large organisations, that he spotted a gap in the market and decided to set up his own company, bringing Donohue and McGahey on board as his first employees. AccountsIQ is a financial management system (FMS) for international businesses operating across multiple locations and entities. The platform handles complex financial processes, such as multi-currency consolidation, multi-level approvals and third-party integrations while also automating daily processes for finance teams.  Looking beyond the hype The emergence of the web in the early 2000s was the catalyst for the business and Connolly sees similar potential in the emergence of AI and its scope to support and enhance the finance function of today. “I remember the advent of ‘the cloud’ and knowing it would be the future for AccountsIQ. The challenge then was convincing accountants that taking their data off-premises and putting it online would be safe and secure, but that has completely changed in the years since,” he says. “Now with AI, we’re seeing a lot of hype and some fear, but we’ve already been on a long journey ourselves with machine learning and automation, so we don’t see AI in 2024 as being ‘revolutionary’. “We view it today as a catalyst for the further development of automation and machine learning and as a digital assistant we can use to help make the work of finance teams easier. I think that is really what it means for Chartered Accountants generally.  “It won’t be replacing them. It will just take the drudgery out of processing and recording transactions and managing things like controls and reconciliations. “That just means that Chartered Accountants and finance teams will have more time to focus on helping to drive their business or organisation forward with access to the right tools and information.”                                                         AI and financial reporting Research released in May by KPMG found that AI is already in widespread use in financial reporting in Ireland, with close to two-thirds (63%) of the financial reporting executives and board members surveyed in Irish companies reporting that they were already using or piloting the technology. AI in financial reporting and audit: navigating the new era surveyed financial reporting executives and board members at 1,800 companies globally, including close to 100 in Ireland. Among Irish respondents, AI is viewed as a “game-changer,” the research found, with two-thirds reporting that their board had already developed a vision or strategy for AI adoption. “The adoption of AI today, and its impact tomorrow, is very much on the agenda at board level among the Irish companies we surveyed and their global counterparts,” Niall Savage, National Head of Audit Markets with KPMG in Ireland, says. The major focus currently is on identifying the most advantageous AI use cases. “Right now, the emphasis is on learning to understand AI, its capabilities, its limitations, the opportunities it may bring and, indeed, the potential threats,” Savage explains. “I was heartened to see in our findings that companies are not focusing solely on AI’s potential to cut costs. That would be a mistake, so it’s encouraging to see that they are instead thinking about identifying the opportunities.” As a technology that is still in its infancy, commercially speaking, AI has scope to encompass much greater capabilities in the future with potential applications of value to companies and their finance teams. “The tools out there and available for use right now – the likes of ChatGPT – are already showing us the great work AI can do in collating and interpreting data from multiple sources to answer our questions in real-time,” Savage says. “This is just scratching the surface, however. What businesses are focusing on now is how they can bring all the relevant data together to enable AI to facilitate much faster strategic decision-making in the future – to spot trends, opportunities, anomalies and potential risks, for example.” For Chartered Accountants and the wider finance team, the upshot will be change – change in the way they work, their capability and their role in the workplace. “For accountants in the future, there will be less need for research, bringing data together and writing up reports – AI will be able to do all of that far more efficiently,” Savage says. “In its place, accountants will have more time to focus on more meaningful work. They will not be under as much pressure to use their time to ‘get the numbers right’. “They will be even more involved in key decisions. They will have even more opportunities to have a place at the top table. The profession could change radically and, I think, very positively.” Upskilling for the AI world To benefit from this transition, Chartered Accountants will need to upskill and align their knowledge and experience with AI, a technology that has the potential to elevate their role in business and finance. “It’s a bit like the rise of Microsoft Excel in the nineties. At that time, even the finest technical accountants had to learn to use this technology – and learn to use it well and use it quickly. AI is the same,” Savage says.  “There will always be the need for the accountant to verify the information AI is giving them and, ultimately, to make the decisions. The need to exercise caution, judgement and governance will always be the remit of the accountant, even as AI evolves into the future.”   He continues: “The top use case identified by respondents in our survey was AI’s potential to provide critical, real-time information that can then be interpreted to deliver tangible benefits – for businesses, this might mean understanding where to allocate capital, where to invest or where they might have a problem. “This will really put Chartered Accountants and Chief Financial Officers across the globe at the coalface of business commercially. We will be the people who interpret the data to bring real value to the organisation. We will continue to be custodians as we are today, but with much more powerful tools at our disposal.” Chartered Accountants Ireland Chartered Accountants Ireland welcomes the advance of AI and sees it as a significant opportunity for the profession.  With every advance in technology over the course of the Institute’s 136-year history, the profession has adapted.  “The pace and advancement of AI is an aid to the accountant who can entrust the tools to perform functions that previously required manual input,” says Ian Browne, Director of Education at Chartered Accountants Ireland.  “In this way, we see the advancements in AI as an enabler for new economic activities for the profession.” Since 2017, the Institute’s Education Department has been reforming the educational syllabus for its primary qualification, with the introduction of principles-based teaching materials in several areas. This work has spanned data analytics, data visualisation, robotic process automation, blockchain, cryptocurrency, sustainability – and AI.  Launched in 2019, the evolved syllabus reflects the lived experience of the accountant in practice and industry, Browne says.  Two years ago, the Education Department formalised the findings of a major research project. Project Athena proposed to teach the latest advances in technology and emerging accounting practice, while incorporating emerging trends in accountancy, using a blend of the most up to date technology and teaching pedagogy. “The Education Department has been preparing the output of Project Athena with the launch of a new multi-disciplinary qualification beginning in September 2025,” explains Browne. “Part of the remit of the Education Department is to ensure that we keep abreast of technological developments, assess their future value and determine how they will affect the lived experience of a Chartered Accountant.  “Only then do we consider when to add the underlying principles of these advancements to the Chartered Accountant qualification. It can be easy to get carried away by the hype cycle attached to new developments in technology, but we only add new elements to syllabi that can meaningfully add tangible value to our students and economic value to the profession.” AI and attracting younger candidates In June, Belfast-based RBCA announced a £50,000 investment in AI. Partnering with Xero, the Chartered Accountancy firm will use the technology to reduce manual tasks and administration, automate bookkeeping and generate reports and forecasts. RBCA founder Ross Boyd believes the investment will allow his team of 20 to focus more on servicing and consulting with existing clients, while also building new business relationships. “When used correctly, I think AI can transform the professional services sector for the better by removing the focus on repetitive, routine tasks, such as data entry and document processing. It can free up employees to focus more on complex and relationship-led tasks,” Boyd explains. However, while AI can learn from data and make predictions, it will “never replace the value of human judgement,” Boyd says. “Chartered Accountants will need to respond to AI, and its increasingly prevalent place in our work, by adapting, training and upskilling. There is no way around that, as far as I can see, but AI will not replace the role of the Chartered Accountant. “It may remove the burden of repetitive and time-consuming activities for Chartered Accountants, giving us more capacity to tackle the challenges only the human condition can master, but I cannot see it replacing what we do.” Boyd believes the emergence and uptake of technologies such as AI in the profession may even help to attract younger candidates in the future. “At the end of the day, we live in a technologically minded world, so it’s time to accept new opportunities,” he says. A survey of 2,000 accountants in the UK carried out last year by Intuit QuickBooks found that 92 percent had experienced hiring challenges.  “We have to provide the right learning environment for young people who have grown up using technology to do tasks and solve tasks. Gen Z, now aged up to 26, are becoming more present in the workforce and will account for 27 percent by 2025,” Boyd says. “To continue to attract young people to accounting, I think it’s important that we harness the benefits of technology to position the role – not as monotonous and gruelling – but as interesting, varied and strategic. That is where AI comes in.” Elevated role for Chartered Accountants Brian O’Malley, Senior Manager, Private Client Services – Tax and Law, at EY Ireland, agrees that AI will bring a more strategic, higher value focus to the role of the Chartered Accountant. “Generative AI (GenAI), in particular, is a revolutionary tool for the accounting profession that has the potential to boost productivity, increase revenue and manage risk,” O’Malley says. “As GenAI becomes more prevalent in the years ahead, I think we will see a shift in the role of the ‘traditional’ accountant as the technology assists more and more with quantitative and routine tasks. “We will instead be freed up to spend more time on qualitative work requiring a focus on communication, leadership and ethical decision-making skills.” Accountants who embrace AI by developing the necessary skills to manage and interpret the output of AI systems will be well-positioned to offer greater value.  “Navigating the intricacies of AI outputs responsibly and ensuring that AI-generated insights align with overall business objectives and regulatory requirements, will become a key aspect of our role,” O’Malley says. EY has invested more than €1.3 billion in AI globally, encompassing technology and services, and last year launched EYQ, its own large language model. “I use EYQ myself regularly to assist with administrative tasks and carry out research safely and securely,” says O’Malley, who is based at the firm’s Southeastern headquarters in Waterford city. “AI has brought a sense of excitement to the Southeast in that both large multinationals and SMEs are keen to explore it and ‘unlock its power’ to enhance their everyday business operations,” he says. “This was evident at our recent EY Waterford Generative AI event, which was aimed at helping our local business community to better understand how they can implement it.  “The event was attended by many local businesses, demonstrating the strong interest in the technology and its potential.” This eagerness to harness AI among businesses in Ireland will only benefit Chartered Accountants in the future, O’Malley believes. “If you consider the world in which we work, it is fast-paced and constantly changing, especially from a regulatory perspective. AI has the potential to provide us with the necessary resources to thrive in the modern business world.  “It can help Chartered Accountants to meet our clients’ changing needs and act as strategic partners to businesses as they seek to capitalise on opportunities.  “By effectively harnessing  AI, I think many Chartered Accountants will see their role expand beyond financial statements to encompass that of trusted advisor, strategist and business solution provider.” 

Global regulations are increasingly driving a focus on sustainability reporting, requiring companies to disclose their environmental, social and governance practices, writes Miriam Donald When I became an accountant nearly 20 years ago, the intersection of business and sustainability was very different to what it has become today. I remember a university course touching on corporate social responsibility (CSR), but with more of an ethical and community lens than an environmental focus. At that time, CSR was positioned as something that was “nice to do”. Today, the landscape has changed considerably. Sustainability is becoming more and more intertwined with how businesses operate. This shift is being driven not just by voluntary sustainability reporting, but also increasingly by evolving regulatory frameworks. This evolution comes down to demand from international investors who understand that environmental risks can have a significant impact on the financial sustainability of businesses. This means that it is now necessary to upskill and find out what is required in your jurisdiction and report as needed. The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation has had a busy few years. Its International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) released its first two sustainability standards in June 2023. The foundation has also been working hard to consolidate Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards and Integrated Reporting Framework and Climate Disclosure Standards Board into the organisation while also building interoperability with the Global Reporting Initiative and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). This consolidation drive is part of the IFRS Foundation’s goal to create one set of global standards with the aim of facilitating easy comparability of sustainability disclosures globally. Despite these efforts, reporting obligations still differ across the world. It is useful, then, to look to countries like New Zealand and Australia and draw inspiration from their sustainability reporting efforts. New Zealand was one of the first countries to legislate mandatory climate-related disclosures for about 200 businesses from 1 January 2023. These disclosure standards were developed by New Zealand’s External Reporting Board. The first 34 of these entities have now published their first climate statements, which can be viewed on New Zealand’s Companies Office register. These disclosures are mainly qualitative but encourage company boards to think differently about their strategy, with a newfound focus on how climate change might affect their operations and value chains. One of the main purposes of this reporting is to ensure that the effects of climate change are routinely considered in business, investment, lending and insurance underwriting decisions. The hope is that, by bringing these effects to the forefront of board members’ minds, more climate-friendly decisions might be made in the future. Across the Tasman, Australia is also mandating climate-related disclosures for a much broader group of entities, with legislation now before parliament at the time of writing. The Australian Accounting Standards Board is developing these standards, which are expected to be closely aligned to the ISSB standards on climate-related disclosures. Reporting periods for the first entities will begin from 1 January 2025. With new regulations come opportunities. For reporting entities, responsibility for this reporting is increasingly sitting with their finance functions. They also need to be thinking strategically beyond compliance, however, to better respond to the risks and opportunities of climate-related matters. These disclosures will also be assured, and accounting practices will need to build their knowledge in this new and evolving area. As the driving force behind these disclosures and jurisdictions, the IFRS is signalling that while climate is the first focus area for disclosures, it is not the end game. Finding out what is coming down the track for your business will be important. Miriam Donald is Lower North Island Regional Manager with Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand

Attracting top graduate talent requires a strategic recruitment plan focused on strong employer branding, fostering internal relationships and academic partnerships, explains Mary Cloonan In today’s highly competitive job market, attracting top graduate talent is more challenging than ever. With a plethora of career opportunities at their fingertips, graduates seek firms that stand out through their values, culture and development opportunities. Organisations need a strategic and well-structured recruitment plan to engage this year’s graduate cohort. This strategy should holistically focus on brand building, celebrating the success of current graduates, nurturing strong internal relationships, establishing collaborations with academic institutions and communicating the recruitment process clearly and transparently. Building a compelling employer brand To attract top graduates, it is important that your organisation’s brand offers them what they are looking for in an employer. There are three elements to focus on in your employer brand: Corporate identity and values: Graduates gravitate towards firms that profess clear values and live by them. Firms must communicate their core values effectively, emphasising social responsibility, sustainability and ethical practices to resonate deeply with potential candidates. Employee testimonials and success stories: Showcasing current graduates’ real-life success stories of through social media, blogs and video testimonials can powerfully augment a firm’s brand. These narratives provide authentic proof of the professional growth and development facilitated by your company, making it an attractive place for ambitious graduates to start their careers. Interactive engagement: Proactive engagement through webinars, virtual career fairs and interactive Q&A sessions enables potential recruits to gain insights into the company’s culture and employee experiences. This level of interaction can significantly boost a firm’s appeal, drawing in candidates who are a good cultural and ethical fit. Fostering strong internal relationships Creating an environment that promotes growth and development is crucial in maintaining a dynamic and supportive workplace. This is achieved by understanding and responding to the current team’s needs and ambitions by: Mentorship and comprehensive training: By implementing robust mentorship programs and offering comprehensive technical and soft skills training, companies can equip graduates with the necessary tools to succeed and integrate seamlessly into the professional environment. Listening to learn: Regular feedback sessions help cultivate a culture of openness and ongoing development, which can be used to tailor training programs and career development initiatives to suit individual and organisational goals. Recognition and advancement opportunities: Publicly acknowledging and rewarding graduates’ achievements helps to foster a motivational workplace atmosphere and demonstrates the firm’s commitment to investing in its employees’ success. Collaborating with academic institutions Forming strategic alliances with universities and colleges is essential to accessing emerging talent and enhancing brand visibility among students. Collaborations that offer students practical experience and internship opportunities allow companies to assess potential employees in real-world contexts, benefiting both students and employers. By participating in educational programs and delivering workshops, companies provide valuable industry insights and help demystify the professional world for students, preparing them effectively for their future careers. Firms contributing their expertise to academic curricula ensure that the education provided is relevant and up to date, enhancing graduates’ employability and ensuring they are well-prepared for their professional journey. Transparently communicating the recruitment process Clear and proactive communication about the recruitment process is crucial for setting correct expectations and creating a positive candidate experience. The firm’s careers page should clearly detail each step of the recruitment process, from application to selection, explaining it and reducing applicant anxiety. A comprehensive FAQ section, along with supportive materials such as year-by-year training breakdowns and process videos, provides candidates with all the necessary information to navigate the application procedure confidently. Finally, videos, photography and tagged posts featuring current graduates talking about their experiences can give insights into the day-to-day realities of working at the firm and showcase the vibrant community and dynamic work environment. A proactive and transparent recruitment strategy is paramount in these competitive times. By effectively building a robust brand, fostering strong internal relationships, empowering graduates, forming educational partnerships and clearly articulating and showcasing the recruitment journey, firms can attract, engage and retain top talent, paving the way for sustained success. Mary Cloonan is the founder of Marketing Clever