Debate: Climate change, environmental challenges, sustainable development goals and the relevance of accounting

Climate change is a massive challenge for humanity but its relationship to accounting may seem remote. However, accounting, as a discipline, has an important input to offer
to this multidimensional challenge. Public sector entities are now slowly adopting reporting practices to disclose actions and performance measures related to the environment, for example, sustainability reporting, integrated reporting, and environmental reporting. In these reports, the presentation is mostly made with either quantified or non-quantified measures that, in the majority of cases, are non-monetary.
Assigning monetary values to delicate issues can be extremely difficult and, in some cases, inappropriate. The inherent difficulties of monetizing actions or omissions that
impact the natural environment create a vague picture, where the costs related to environmental preservation or the costs caused by environmental deterioration are not
very clear. We must not underestimate the strength of financial information in the way citizens understand climate change, environmental challenges and sustainability goals
and thus the role of accounting as part of a solution.