The Project
ASSET, Accounting for Sustainability, Social and Environmental Transparency.
Incorporating sustainability into university accounting curricula: a need that can no longer be deferred
There is a growing global demand for accounting programmes – in higher education and business schools as well – to positively impact society and promote sustainable development.
Recently, the AACSB Accreditation Standards (2021) for Accounting, the EQUIS Accreditation Standards for business schools, and the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education have emphasised the need to raise students’ awareness of the importance of sustainable development goals and enhance their sustainability-oriented skills.
Educating accounting students about sustainability can increase their consciousness and alertness of sustainability and ESG initiatives in companies. To meet the challenges of the nowadays world, there is a crucial need to open accounting students’ mindset, regarding the importance of sustainability topics and ESG goals in the organisational structure. Managers and accounting professionals must know that companies’ accounting practices must be aligned with those related to production, process design and management, procurement, supplier selection and human resource management to support the company’s sustainability strategy.
Academic accounting programs can be key in creating socially and environmentally responsible accounting professionals and citizens, able to actively engage in spreading the culture of sustainability in organisations and society and fostering the implementation of environmental and social initiatives that go beyond compliance with laws and jurisdictional regulations.
What are the most effective teaching methods for integrating sustainability into the accounting education?
Using innovative teaching methods makes the integration of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into accounting curricula more effective.
For this reason, the ASSET project does not adopt the traditional vocational-technical approach to teaching accounting in higher education, as it hinders students’ environmental and social awareness.
ASSET proposes teaching activities that incorporate pedagogical practices such as variation (observing and addressing a phenomenon from different perspectives), enactment (using interactive and experiential teaching techniques, such as case studies, flipped classroom, debate, role-playing) and reflection (using peer feedback and self-assessment to encourage students to reflect on their learning process, their attitudes, values, and practices).
Such teaching practices encourage students to question concepts rooted in dominant thinking (e.g., shareholder value maximization) and help them master threshold concepts (e.g., sustainability and ESG performance) that open up new ways of thinking about accounting.
The Intensive Study Programs
The Intensive Study Programs
These teaching approaches will be developed and tested in an international context during annual Intensive Study Programs (ISP) jointly organized by the partners and delivered during the three-year project period.
During each ISP, students from partner universities will be involved, participating in the educational activities, focused on various areas of accounting, addressing and incorporating sustainability issues.
In particular four main teaching modules make up the ISPs program:
- Disclosing business value through sustainability and ESG Reporting.
- Sustainability management accounting
- Providing assurance on sustainability reports
- Sustainability, taxation and strategic decision making.
Teachers and students will have the opportunity to interact and compare ideas, perceptions and expectations about sustainability and how it can be effectively incorporated into higher education programmes around the world to promote real change.
The final aim is to prepare accounting students for their future careers, promote their critical thinking skills and urge them to support a global view of social responsibility.