Sustainability and the role of the management accountant
Research executive summary series Volume 7 | Issue 14
Associate Professor Eva Collins, Professor Stewart Lawrence Professor Juliet Roper, Associate Professor Jarrod Haar Waikato Management School, University of Waikato

Key findings:
• Our research has shown that companies need to have management accountants in strategy-setting roles in order to achieve the best sustainability outcomes. • There is a worldwide move toward ‘integrative’ reporting incorporating non-financial as well as financial data. Management accountants are ideally placed to provide the alignment mechanisms and collaborate with senior management in producing fully integrated reports, reflecting sustainable strategies adopted by organisations which fulfil the needs of stakeholder groups. • Our results found that many management accountants are fulfilling their traditional role of financial specialist but not yet acting as collaborators in driving toward sustainability as a goal. • The survey showed that CIMA members had a higher rate of accountants participating in sustainability strategies than non-member companies but it was still a minority (12%) compared to the role of the managing director, environmental, human resources and marketing managers. • Like any other aspect of business, collection and analysis of good, issue-specific data is crucial to sustainability decisions. Sustainability requires accountants to monitor and manage non-traditional data to guide strategic decisions. Management accountants are ideally placed to fulfil this role. • Sustainability does not appear to be a good fit with annual reporting. Interviewees expressed a desire for a new way to report and some organisations had come up with innovative solutions, including electronic media. • We uncovered a sustainability divide between those taking economic advantage