We need green accountants

The accountancy profession must help drive the migration to sustainable economies and businesses by becoming experts in green finance, says a new report from ACCA, called ‘Green finance skills: the guide’.

At a time when access to cheaper capital is more vital than ever to an organisation’s survival, access to green finance can be a lifeline to businesses. However, recent research by ACCA and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) reveals that business are unsure about climate finance opportunities and climate risk management. Some 59% of the respondents to the Global Economic Conditions Survey Q2 2022 said they are not considering using green finance products – an opportunity that must be addressed.

Report author Emmeline Skelton said the profession needs upskilling, especially in volatile times, where access to capital including green finance is critical for an organisations long-term survival.

Sustainability is already firmly integrated within the ACCA core qualification as one of the seven capabilities it believes all professional accountants need. All ACCA students cover topics

Start your AAT’s journey at the right level

The new AAT Q2022 syllabus is proving more challenging for many students than the outgoing AQ2016 syllabus, according to First Intuition’s Gareth John.

He said that much of the duplication of content and assessment has been removed, meaning that students now need to have a strong knowledge and understanding of fundamentals in order to succeed as the move on through the levels.

“It's more important than ever that students start at the right level to ensure they succeed,” John stressed.

For example, he pointed out that the new level

3 FAPS (Financial Accounting: Preparing Financial Statements) paper relies on strong familiarity of double entry bookkeeping principles covered at level 2. Students starting FAPS without some previous experience of debits, credits, TBs, suspense accounts and journals are finding it hard. such as the Integrated Reporting framework, social and environmental audits, environmental management accounting, the measurement of environmental and social performance, and the impact of sustainability issues on strategy formulation, business performance and financial decisions.

John felt students need to avail themselves of First Intuition’s free AAT level checker, which is a useful diagnostic to help ensure students can make a fully informed decision about the best level for them to start at.

The full report can be accessed at www.accaglobal.com/ greenfinanceskills

Press-up challenge complete

Well, he did it! Accountant James Cope has completed his RNLI press-up challenge. Although day 1,000 was on 16 December, and that’s when he hung up his proverbial press-up gloves, donations kept coming in and he has now achieved his fundraising target of £10,000. With gift aid he raised £11,644.96 in total, completing over 500,500 press-ups.