ACCA P1考試：Integrated Reporting and Sustainability

1 Social and Environmental Effects

1.1 Introduction

The social and environmental effects of economic activity have risen towards the top of companies' board agendas (e.g. when setting strategic and operational objectives, corporate governance and risk management procedures) as well as concentrating the minds of many stakeholders (e.g. local communities, pressure groups).

Measuring economic activity in pure economic terms has always been the prime role of accountants. However, being a "good corporate citizen" and accepting CSR require different metrics, benchmarks and disclosures from those used in traditional accounting.

Key elements in managing and reporting social and environmental issues include:

environmental footprints;

social footprints; and

sustainability.

1.2 Economic Activity*

Economic activity has an important influence on security prices because of its interrelationship with corporate profits, inflation, interest rates, etc. At the national level, one frequently used measure of economic activity is gross domestic product (GDP). Observable forms of economic activity include money, consumption, preferences, buying, selling and prices.

Economic activity— the production and distribution of goods and services.

In the production and distribution of goods and services, a significant range of resources will be consumed (e.g. raw materials, power, fuel, water, labour) with resultant outputs (e.g. products, waste, packaging, pollution).

Some of these resources may be renewable (e.g. timber, solar energy, wheat); others will not be renewable (e.g. oil, gas and iron ore). Even if renewable, if a resource is over-used then its replacement will not match its use and the stocks will decline (e.g. fish).

The products of economic activity may be consumed (e.g. food, fuel, electricity) or used and then "thrown away" (e.g. white goods, electronics, motor vehicles, ACCA materials).

Although most products may be recyclable (e.g. 98% of the metal used in modern vehicles is recyclable), the amount of recycling is heavily dependent on the economics of recovering and on legal requirements in individual countries (e.g. by 2015, 95% of vehicles that reach the end of their life in the EU must be reused or recovered).