Dr Aideen O’Dochartaigh provides an accountant’s introduction to natural capital. Concepts such as carbon budgets, natural capital, and carbon taxes illustrate the increasing interaction between accounting and environmental issues. While nature and the biodiversity crisis are often overshadowed in public discourse by the climate crisis, awareness of the economic and intrinsic value of natural ecosystems is growing, highlighted by issues such as pollinator loss and the spread of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19. One of the most useful tools to account for the human impact and our dependency on nature is natural capital accounting. This article offers an introduction to the emerging thinking and methodologies in this area, exploring its applications and benefits for organisations and considering how accountants can engage with natural capital accounting.   What is natural capital accounting? Natural capital has its origins in the concept of capital as a stock that can give rise to goods and/or services. In the case of natural capital, the stock is natural resources or ecosystems such as forests, water, grassland or air, while the goods and services (known as ‘ecosystem services’) that flow from the stock include raw materials for production and consumption (fuel or food, for example), the absorption of wastes from production and consumption, and the fundamental life-supporting services provided by nature. Historically, goods and services flowing from ecosystems have been accounted for, or rather not accounted for, as ‘free gifts’ from nature. The depletion of natural capital has, in turn, been accounted for as income (the sale of forestry products recorded as income, for example) with no recording of the loss of the services provided by the forest, such as the absorption of carbon dioxide. Mounting evidence indicates that human activity is increasingly threatening the stability of natural systems and the ability of the earth to provide a safe space for humanity, and economic activity, to flourish. Four of the nine planetary boundaries identified by scientists have now been transgressed due to human activity, including two core boundaries, climate change and biosphere integrity, with significant impact on the stability of earth systems. We must, therefore, rapidly develop tools to account for our interactions with natural capital and incorporate the calculations into decision-making at management and policy levels. Natural capital accounting frameworks have largely been developed at country and company level. At country level, the most widely used framework is the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). The SEEA methodology measures the scale of the asset, the condition of the asset, the services flowing from the asset, and the benefits to humans. Four thematic accounts are commonly developed: carbon, biodiversity, water, and land, with the valuation of stocks and flows accounted for in both physical and monetary terms. Multiple research institutions are applying this approach in Ireland through the Irish Natural Capital Accounting for Sustainable Ecosystems (INCASE) project, which is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.   Corporate natural capital accounting The SEEA methodology translates at organisation level to the corporate natural capital accounting (CNCA) approach. The Natural Capital Coalition has developed the Natural Capital Protocol to offer companies a roadmap for implementing natural capital accounting, which is a useful initial resource for accountants interested in applying CNCA in their organisations. Natural capital accounting interacts with several other reporting frameworks, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines and integrated reporting, and is also directly related to several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In practice, corporate natural capital accounting requires the entity to set up accounts for assets, maintenance costs, and physical and monetary flow. A simple illustration of the process and the accounts required is shown by the assessment approach adopted by Northern Ireland Environment Link (see Figure 1). Two reporting statements are generated:   The natural capital balance sheet, which presents the asset values and the related liabilities (i.e. the costs of maintaining the natural capital). The asset value must include both the value accruing to the organisation and the value for the rest of society in terms of ecosystem services. The statement of changes in natural assets, which reports the gain or loss in asset values in the reporting period.   An example of the reporting statements is shown in Figure 2 and a comprehensive guide to CNCA, which includes these statements and examples of all the supporting accounts, is provided by the 2015 EFTEC et al. report cited in the figure. In Ireland, Bord na Móna, Coillte and Bord Iascaigh Mhara already apply this approach to accounting for their peatland, forest and marine assets.     Who should use natural capital accounting? The Natural Capital Coalition stress that their Protocol can be applied to any organisation in any industry, and it is recommended that all entities consider their impacts and dependencies on nature and integrate a nature-centred approach into decision-making. Adopting comprehensive natural capital accounting is typically most relevant in the categories summarised in Figure 3:   Sectors that are directly dependent on and/or own large natural capital assets and have a direct impact on these assets (e.g. fossil fuels, forestry, farming, and fisheries). Sectors where raw materials in the supply chain are directly dependent on, and have a direct impact on, natural capital. For retailers in the food and beverage sector, for example, their supply chains are dependent on natural capital such as fresh water or healthy soil. Sectors that rely directly on infrastructure that requires significant land use and/or with significant impacts on natural capital (e.g. energy, transport, and communications). Sectors that are indirectly dependent on large infrastructure through their supply chains (e.g. the technology sector, which relies on energy-intensive data centres).    Why use natural capital accounting? There is an increasing focus on accountability for environmental and social interactions in the supply chain, and natural capital accounting can help organisations understand where their impacts and dependencies lie. For example, luxury goods group Kering has used natural capital accounting to develop its environmental profit and loss (EP&L) account, which illustrates that 90% of the group’s environmental impact relates to its supply chain, largely through raw material production and processing. More nuanced cost-benefit analyses can also be supported by natural capital accounting. In the Netherlands, for example, analysis of peatlands converted for dairy farming revealed that due to the cost of maintaining the land, plus the cost of controlling carbon emissions and water levels, it was not cost-effective to continue to farm the lands. They will instead be converted back to natural ecosystems. Natural capital accounting completed thoroughly and transparently can support reputation management. However, it is important to ensure that information is communicated transparently and consistently to avoid the risk of ‘greenwashing’. Finally, natural capital accounting can help organisations manage nature-based risks such as supply chain disruption, scarcity of raw materials, and new regulatory requirements. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) has developed a framework to support organisations in accounting and reporting on climate-related risks and plans to establish a similar task force on biodiversity-related risks. Table 1 illustrates how accountants can engage with natural capital accounting.   Future directions As natural capital accounting develops, it is important to be cognisant of risks and critiques, and for researchers and practitioners to work to address them. As Kering’s EP&L reveals, many organisations will find that their nature-based impacts and risks are largely associated with the supply chain. To date, however, the potential for accounting and reporting on social and environmental issues at supply chain or sectoral level has not yet been fully explored. Inherent in natural capital accounting is a recognition of interconnectedness between ecosystems, species, and human (and business) activity. In this way, the natural capital approach of looking at impacts and dependencies can help us to link organisation-level activity to sectoral and supply chain activity and, ultimately, to global indicators such as planetary boundaries, including vital climate change and biodiversity targets. It is also crucial to be aware of the risks of instrumentalising nature by reconceptualising it solely as natural capital, rather than seeing it as intrinsically valuable. Financialising nature in this way can encourage the use of ‘trade-off’ arguments to justify environmentally and socially destructive activities, which also privilege some actors over others. For example, corporate natural capital accounting could be used to support a decision to harvest forestry in the Amazon, or kelp on the Irish coast, which privileges the company’s valuation of the natural capital asset over both the intrinsic value of the related ecosystem and the value it holds for local or indigenous communities. Natural capital accounting must be accompanied by a holistic approach to performance measurement and decision-making, characterised by community engagement, accountability and transparency. Accountants are encouraged to work with multiple actors in a participatory way as we develop new means of accounting to support a sustainable future.   Dr Aideen O’Dochartaigh ACA is Assistant Professor in Accounting in  DCU Business School.

Gemma Donnelly-Cox, Mary-Lee Rhodes, Benn Hogan and Mary Lawlor make the business case for corporate human rights reporting and outline critical issues for businesses to consider. Businesses can impact human rights in every context in which they operate. These impacts can be positive: delivering employment, infrastructure and furthering development. They can also be negative, bringing risks, including forced and child labour, pollution and corruption. Since 1 January 2017, all companies in Ireland to which the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) applies have been required to disclose information relating to respect for human rights, including human rights risks and due diligence processes. Over the same period, there has been an increased interest among investment managers, most notably in Europe, in the human rights performance of companies. Furthermore, mandatory human rights due diligence is coming down the tracks. On 29 April, the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, announced his intention to bring forward a legislative proposal in 2021 on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence. It would seem to be in the clear interest of companies to have a human rights policy and to undertake human rights reporting. Richard Karmel, Global Business and Human Rights Partner at Mazars UK, makes this case in saying (in correspondence with the authors): “Reporting on human rights isn’t a compliance area; it is about being authentic and meaningful in disclosing not only the actions that you have taken to address your greatest risk areas (salient risks) but also reporting on how you know this information. Companies shouldn’t view addressing human rights as an internal cost for external benefit; there is huge internal benefit – greater productivity, improved quality of supplies, less staff turnover and absenteeism, and the attraction of new recruits, for example. This is not a cost area, but one of investment and companies are very good at monitoring their return on investment.” However, when we looked at human rights reporting by Irish companies, we found a significant information gap. Very few of the companies we studied in Ireland include human rights performance in the policy statements or company reports they publish, including those prepared under the NFRD. This may be due in part to the limited guidance within the Directive on how companies should report on human rights, including due diligence. We consider here some of the factors driving human rights reporting, what is required in such reporting, and what it looks like when companies do it well.   The UN Guiding Principles and the Irish national plan In December 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously adopted the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). These principles were the first agreed statement by UN member states following 40 years of attempts to clarify the relationship between business and human rights. Embedded in the UNGPs is the three-pillar ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework’, which sets out the duties of states to protect human rights, and the responsibilities of businesses to respect human rights and remedy failures. At a national level, a range of laws and ‘national action plans’ (NAPs) were created by member states seeking to embed these principles in company law and practice. Ireland’s NAP, published in 2017, recognises the need to, among other things, “encourage” companies to “develop human rights-focused policies and reporting initiatives”, “conduct appropriate human rights due diligence” and to consider a range of matters regarding access to remedy. An implementation group involving a wide range of stakeholders was established by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to progress the NAP and a baseline assessment of the Irish legislative and regulatory framework was produced.   The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark and Irish company performance In 2019, the Trinity Centre for Social Innovation published Irish Business and Human Rights: Benchmarking Compliance with the UN Guiding Principles. Mark Kennedy, Managing Partner at Mazars Ireland, has described the report as “a first and important assessment of how companies are dealing with what is a vitally important business issue”. We reported on the results of our pilot study in which we applied the benchmarking methodology developed by the UK-based Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB). The CHRB conducts an annual assessment of 200 of the world’s largest publicly traded companies on a set of human rights indicators. The indicators consider:   Commitments: what commitments does a company make to respect human rights, engage with stakeholders and remedy shortcomings? Responsibility, resources, and due diligence: what steps does a company take to embed responsibility and resources for day-to-day human rights, and to establish a due diligence process that encompasses: identifying human rights risks; assessing them; taking appropriate action on the assessed risks; and tracking what happens after action by monitoring and evaluating their effectiveness? Grievance mechanisms, remedy and learning: what grievance mechanisms are established for staff and external stakeholders? How are adverse impacts remedied, and how are the lessons learned incorporated? Our report applied these indicators to analyse human rights policies and reporting in 22 Irish companies that have international operations. Our source materials for the study were the companies’ publicly available information, as listed in Figure 1. We found that, by and large, the Irish companies in our study are not reporting fully or systematically, and therefore are failing to make their human rights performance visible. No company disclosed a human rights due diligence process, and no company had a publicly reported formal commitment to remedy adverse impacts caused by it to individuals, workers or communities. Where companies are reporting, what does an ‘exemplar’ look like? Adidas AG was ranked first in the 2019 global CHRB (see corporatebenchmark.org). Bill Anderson, Vice President, Global Social and Environmental Affairs at Adidas notes (in correspondence with the authors) that excellence requires transparency about human rights failures as well as successes: “John Ruggie, the author of the UNGP, offered a simple but powerful message to business: in order to meet societal expectations, businesses must both know, and show, that they are respecting human rights. Building policies and due diligence systems on human rights is only half the journey. If a company is to be accountable for its actions and decisions, it must strive for transparency. This can start with small steps, the publication of a statement and a commitment to uphold rights and in time, lead to more dedicated reporting measures on issues and remedies. It is always easy to present the good one is doing, but much harder to account for the negative impacts a company’s operations may have on people’s lives.” Human rights reporting is here to stay While few companies in our sample of 20 Irish companies reported systematically on human rights, and despite an apparent lack of awareness among them of the UNGP, and a lack of explicit compliance, our view is that awareness of the requirement to report is slowly gaining strength in Ireland. It makes business sense to know how to report and how to address areas that indicate less than ideal human rights performance. Companies reporting under the NFRD are likely to face a shifting environment in the coming years. The European Commission is currently conducting a review of the NFRD, with a proposal expected in Q4 of this year. As mentioned above, the EU is committed to bringing forward legislation on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence in 2021. Companies that get the basics right now by implementing policies and due diligence to prevent human rights abuses, instigating appropriate systems to remedy harms caused, and communicating their actions through non-financial reporting mechanisms will be well-placed to respond to this evolving regulatory landscape. We continue to benchmark Irish companies and in autumn 2020, will report on an expanded sample. We hope that benchmarking in Ireland will contribute to the impetus for improved corporate human rights reporting. Richard Karmel shares this view, noting that benchmarking “has an important role to play in the world of human rights reporting; after all, few companies want to be seen in the bottom quartile. Naturally, human rights benchmarks should stimulate a race to the top and ultimately encourage better treatment by business of those who are most vulnerable in our supply chains.”   Gemma Donnelly-Cox, Mary-Lee Rhodes, Benn Hogan and Mary Lawlor represent the Centre for Social Innovation at Trinity Business School.

The accountancy profession needs to engage with  how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence will disrupt traditional career pathways. By Dr Patrick Buckley, Dr Elaine Doyle, and Ruth Gilligan Information technology has become inextricably embedded in virtually every aspect of our professional and personal lives. Data about what we do, what we are interested in, with whom we communicate and where we go can all be captured and stored at a scale unimaginable even five years ago. Technology giants such as Google, Amazon and Alibaba are engaged in a competitive race to capture the data generated by this new reality, lending credence to The Economist’s claim in 2017 that “the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data”. The data captured is valuable for several reasons. For one, traditional activities such as advertising can be personalised and optimised to a revolutionary degree – think of Facebook. Data also allows companies to build entirely new products. For example, the utility of Google Search results depends on analysing what information others have found useful in the past. A further value assigned to these data streams is linked to the development of artificial intelligence (AI). A host of mathematical and algorithmic tools – some novel, some more mature but turbocharged by the advent of big data – has propelled the development of AI. Leaving aside philosophical questions such as to what extent these systems are intelligent, every-day and now familiar examples of AI (Siri and Alexa, for example), are demonstrably practical and effective. These visible successes, combined with the breakneck pace of development, pose a multitude of questions about the impact of AI on our future – not least its impact on the future of work. The future of work Concerns about automation and jobless futures are not new. Two centuries ago, Ricardo proposed that technology caused unemployment. In the 1930s, Keynes predicted that new technologies would reduce the demand for human labour. In the 1980s, Leontief compared the role of a human in the modern economy to that of a horse in agricultural production – first diminished, and then eliminated by automation. Until the advent of AI, the consensus was that such predictions were overly simplistic. While new technologies can have a destructive effect on a particular industry or sector, their introduction often leads to increased opportunities in other areas. The overall effect is to change the structure of the jobs market, rather than result in a reduction in the work available. The jobs eliminated by new technology are replaced by jobs requiring higher-order cognitive skills (e.g. a robot replaces a welder but requires a software engineer to program it). Though this can be frightening and stressful for individuals, at a societal level, as long as education and training enable people to adapt to changing conditions by acquiring new skills, the long-term impact of technological change on the jobs market should be positive. The rise of AI has disrupted this consensus. In brief, the suggestion is that the human monopoly on tasks requiring significant cognitive processing is being broken. Education and training may become ladders to nowhere if AI systems that match or surpass human cognitive abilities are feasible. A glance at the world today demonstrates that many tasks humans once performed are being automated by AI systems, with virtually all studies showing that the process is accelerating as the capability of AI systems improves. For example, two Oxford economists, Frey and Osborne, predict that 47% of jobs in the US will be automated by 2030. The impact of AI Investigating how this disruption is likely to impact the accountancy profession, our research profiled the tasks that practitioners perform at different stages of their career and at three levels: trainee/junior, manager, and director/partner. We then calculated the probability of each task being automated by aggregating information from a range of sources, including academic studies and reports from professional, industry and government organisations. Our analysis makes it clear that, taken as a whole, accountants perform an enormous variety of tasks for their clients and employers. Some tasks, such as preparing accounts or tax returns, are considered extremely vulnerable to automation. Others, such as designing effective financial control strategies for clients, building relationships, or mentoring juniors and trainees are not. This feature of the profession has two implications: Given the enormous variety of tasks performed and roles fulfilled by accountants, assigning a single probability and suggesting that this represents an objective assessment of how vulnerable the profession as a whole is to automation is a simplification to the point of absurdity. The large number of tasks not vulnerable to automation means that for the foreseeable future, the profession as a whole does not face an existential threat. Tasks like designing effective tax strategies or the financial structures of businesses will require a mix of quantitative and soft skills as well as a deep, strategic understanding of the world beyond the capabilities of AI. Career pathways However, this does not mean that the profession can afford to be complacent. Analysing the potential effects of AI at different stages of a traditional career pathway reveals that the tasks vulnerable to automation belong predominately to early career stages. This is particularly the case for trainees/juniors, but also applies substantially to certain work at manager level. Therefore, while accountants may always be needed, the current economic case for most trainees and some managers may disappear. This presents challenges for the profession. Most obvious is the need to redesign career pathways in response to these trends. A traditional career pathway through the profession follows the well-worn path of trainee to manager to director to partner. A key question for firms and the profession is how to replenish senior ranks if the bottom rungs of the career progression ladder are removed. If there are no trainees or junior staff, where does the next generation of managers, directors and partners come from? A second, related issue is that of skills and knowledge development. Generally, the more experienced individuals in organisations perform the more cognitively demanding tasks. The tasks most vulnerable to AI automation are often seen as repetitive and undemanding. At first glance, the automation of such tasks may seem a positive development for employers and employees alike. However, this perspective takes no account of the knowledge and skills gained by performing these tasks in a real-world setting. For example, designing effective tax strategies requires experience that can only be acquired by spending time working on basic tax compliance. It may be possible to develop the skills and aptitudes required by more senior practitioners without a long, real-world apprenticeship. However, there is no evidence to support this position. At the very least, it seems likely that the entry pathway to the profession will need restructuring, with substantial changes required to curricula and entry requirements. In an extreme case, firms may face severe skills shortages a few years after engaging in significant automation. Higher-order skills may atrophy and disappear due to the lack of entry-level positions rupturing the supply pipeline of employees capable of performing higher-order tasks. Perception of the profession A third potential issue is the attractiveness of the profession to new entrants. If some of the tasks traditionally performed by managers are automated, then this will presumably have the effect of reducing the total number of individuals required at this level. The profession may evolve towards a position where a relatively small number of individuals (say 5%) do high-value, well-remunerated work while the other 95% are relegated to low-value, poorly paid tasks. A rational and risk-weighing decision-maker, the very type of intellect the profession seeks to attract, may select away from careers where the odds seem stacked against being able to access opportunity. In the long run, this selection bias may have a significant adverse effect on the profession’s ability to attract high-calibre candidates. The future of the profession Forecasting the future is a notoriously uncertain endeavour. Any predictions regarding the impact of AI on the accountancy profession (including those in this article) should be treated with scepticism. Reports of the imminent demise of the accountancy profession are, in all likelihood, greatly exaggerated. However, it would be equally short-sighted to discount the potential impact of AI on the profession entirely. It does seem likely that in the medium-term, the traditional career pathways associated with accountancy will be significantly dislocated. Responding to this will require meaningful, profession-wide dialogue and debate about how the next generation of accountants will be recruited, educated, and motivated.   Dr Patrick Buckley and Dr Elaine Doyle lecture at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, and Ruth Gilligan is a Tax Associate at PwC Ireland.