[Matthew Sorola] Thank you everybody for coming today, my name is Matthew Sorola, I'm an assistant professor in the Toulouse Business School, and I'm joined today with four people who really need no introduction in this area but we're going to do it anyway [laughs]. First we have the Rubin Chair of Sustainability in Business, Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability at Lancaster University, Jan Bebbington, [in Spanish] Catedrático de Contabilidad en el Grupo de investigación contabilidad, Cambio y Sociedad, Universidad de Burgos, Carlos Larrinaga, Director of Lloyd's Banking Group Centre for Responsible Business at the University of Birmingham, Ian Thomson, and Professor of Accounting at the Alliance Manchester Business School and the University of Amsterdam Business School Brendan O'Dwyer.

[Title: How did the handbook come together?]

[Jan Bebbington] Well quite simply, Routledge asked us if we would write something and so like many scholars who will be watching this if somebody asks you to do something and it sounds really worthwhile and it sounds important and if you get to do it with great people then saying yes is quite easy, so if you like that was the motivation.

And, the Kea on the front I can claim credit for - we were trying to look for, we were told that we should go and look at a bunch of pictures and decide what to use, and a lot of them were quite sort of you know twee and sort of classic environmental pictures and because we didn't want this to be a very classic environmental accounting handbook, but a bit more exciting, I thought well, why can't we have a Kea?

They weren't very, they didn't promise to do it but I was amazed they did and absolutely delighted because the the Kea is endangered it's a very naughty bird but it's a very curious bird and I like to think that these three colleagues, and include yourself in that as well, are both inquisitive, naughty, ambitious and hopefully taking flight in the world.

[Title: How were authors selected for the handbook?]

[Ian Thomson] I'd like to say there was a grand plan at the very beginning, that we that we all had in our head that we that we were kind of going to work to. I think it was very much an emergent topic it was as Jan said it was an opportunity. It's an opportunity to do something different.

You know, believe it or not but we've been emerging scholars at one point in time, we've kind of been...find the benefit of...like somebody's kind of pulling things together in a single space, and so it was a idea, then there was a basic structure, then there was a skeleton and then it kind of changed a bit and then as, I think as we were there we made a decision to say this this shouldn't be a sort of a testament of the old. This has to be a kind of a living document that has to kind of inspire people and once once we had that discussion it was really easy to then to say well, who's doing exciting work in this space? And forget people's CV's, forget people's stuff, it's who's doing the exciting work that will hold together as a piece.

[Brendan O'Dwyer] I also think that it tends to be a very supportive community in this field and getting people together to contribute then becomes easier. I also think the timing of the book was absolutely crucial both for the people involved at the so-called junior level and for more senior individuals like ourselves, given the various issues that are occurring now in both the business and the environment sector, and for me personally anyway this book is an extension of going back to 1987 the corporate social reporting text produced by Gray, Owen and Maunders which allowed new researchers to enter this arena, take up a book and get a sense of what was actually happening.

Now, what was happening back then was much less than what's happening now but hey, here's a text now you can pick up. It's hopefully clearly written, very accessible and you can dive in straight away into various topics and areas, and get a sense of what's going on.

[Carlos Larrinaga] And I would like to stress how enriching and how at the same time easy was to engage with the different authors. They were very supportive and we didn't get any 'no' for a for an answer so every every author addressing a research topic that we consider was important to be included in the Handbook was very supportive for the Handbook.

And...I think that something that is also important for us is the fact that Rob Gray, Professor Rob Gray, was writing a prologue to the Handbook and we would like to you know to present, to to offer this to the social and environmental accounting the community as, you know, as something to remember Professor Rob Gray.

[Title: What is 'ecological literacy'?]

[Jan Bebbington] The way, well 30 years of thinking about the intersection between accounting and the natural environment has led to some quite different ways of now seeing what we're trying to tackle so oftentimes people distinguish environmental literacy from ecological literacy, so environmental literacy, if I take the case of carbon and climate change, would be figuring out a price of carbon and maybe putting it into a cost-benefit analysis and trying to figure out what you might do as a result of that.

Ecological literacy in the same space would be interested in that as a technique, but would ask what reduction trajectories would be necessary in order to live within the capacity of the planet to absorb our our emissions, So I think in the last thirty years things have really moved on from what was a, you know, a very far-sighted concern about the natural world and what might be happening to the natural world, to a great flourishing of scientific insight about

the way in which the the earth is a whole system, and that it's reaching a series of tipping points potentially, its capacity to deal with what we as human societies with organisations as a mediating force in that situation is getting quite, you know, problematic and complex.

So I think the ecological literacy that I would hope that the book brings to people is that there are a series of techniques, there's a series of, you know, really amazing approaches to trying to deal with the environmental problems, but on top of that we need to be addressing the questions...in a way and at a scale that is going to be fit for purpose for where we find ourselves. So for me that would be the difference from where we started at the outset, I think we've all become lots more...literate in environmental problems, but then also literate in the fact that it's about the ecology, so the knowledge skills and capabilities for humankind to live at peace with the planet, within a one planet capacity, but also to do so fairly and justly, so the social element has been core to that as well.

[Title: What is the role of theory and strategy?]

[Brendan O'Dwyer] Well the first thing i was trying to do is to offer a trajectory, a trajectory in theorising in environmental accounting and reporting, that was the key idea. I wanted the trajectory to begin with the whole notion of stakeholder accountability going right back to the Gray, Owen and Maunders work at the very beginning, at the very beginning, but one of the beginnings of this particular field of study, and then to trace through what happened in the literature since then, and for me it was brilliant because I actually learned so much from the process myself having had to read so many papers that I'd missed over the years.
And one of the key things for me as well was to look and see what had happened since 2002 when Rob Gray had a point in AOS about the lack of theorising in what he was calling then social accounting but which was then very much intertwined with environmental accounting as addressed in this book. And just to understand how people had sought to understand, to make sense of the things they were studying over time and how that sense making had enabled them then to deliver insights which could be used both in practice but also to develop how we think about accounting and its links to the environment more generally.

So that was my overall, my overall approach. I think what I was getting at there was I was saying, well wow, Rob Gray was quite concerned back in 2002, I'm overwhelmed now having written this chapter, I don't know where I am anymore, okay? [laughs] And I was just trying to work out for myself, okay where is this leading us to?

But I think in one sense though what came... what I was a little bit excited by was the fact that there's still potential for individuals in this area to develop their own conceptualisations, their own theorisations of practice in a kind of a quasi-grounded theory vein. We don't see as much of that in this literature, and given that it's relatively unique in some senses, although I would argue now it's a mainstream literature or at least it should be in the financial management and reporting vein, and we don't see as much of this whereby individuals are, you know, deriving conceptual ideas from their mass of data. Now Ian alludes to this somewhat in his early chapter in the book as well, where he talks about the abductive process which he recommends people go through when designing and implementing research studies.

So that's really what, so in a sense ...I wouldn't be as strong as to say I was arguing that there was over-theorising, there's quite a lot of theorising, okay, often very very excellent and elegant theorising, I was more saying well, maybe we should step back a little bit sometimes and ask ourselves okay what is it about this theorising that we can develop further and maybe also, without adding more complexity, be confident enough to say there's something...there are models or conceptions you can develop from these masses of data that are in themselves somewhat unique. Not for the sake of it, as I say at the very end of the book, not for the sake of it, but because it might actually help us to think in a different way about the issues, but also add something original to our understanding of environmental accounting and reporting more generally.

But...I should say as well is that that chapter for me was a labour of love because actually it really did open me up to a lot of work I admit I i just hadn't had time to read, and have having to write the chapter forced me to actually take a look at it. And I also by the way missed lots of work in that chapter as I...try and apologise for in some of my footnotes throughout.

[Ian Thomson] One of the things I really enjoyed about the chapter is that it's the proximity of all these different theories, it's... like an analogy, it's like having a really nice kind of like beer but then going to whisky where it's all kind of like distilled together and all the flavours are there and you get an intensity in the kind of...I think in the whole first section there's a real intensity and things are...so it means you can actually see things together and that kind of slice across is really really unique because previously you know...if you're a stakeholder person you've read, there's hundreds of stakeholder stuff, and you would just kind of get drawn into a stakeholder rabbithole or a Foucauldian rabbithole or a dialogic rabbithole and...what actually I think is really powerful is the fact that these things are all together, they're like...strands and you can actually see them and you can experience, if you like, but through reading, that the kind of the scope of different things which then allows you then to I think to understand it. And I think it's...about that informed choice so that you're able to step back a little bit and look at all these...kind of these different things together you know.

[Brendan O'Dwyer] I think also it's a sign of maturity as well in the actual field. There's a...slight, there's a developing suite of studies which...hopefully are building somewhat on each other theoretically and in empirically, but what's really important about that first section as well, Ian, and it... in some sense develops your point, is that we need to be in some senses conscious that this work doesn't ever get lost. Not my work or Ian's work or Carlos's work or Jan's work, but the work in general.

In the current trend towards large-scale data sets, large-scale modelling using artificial intelligence, or say for example disclosures in this area etc which is absolutely fine, but much of the time has no connection with or desire to engage with what's in this book, okay, and this book is about making sure whatever happens in the research realm we're operating in, this work will not get lost and will always provide that base if people want to develop into it. And I think given the way it's constructed there's no excuse not to delve into it.

[Jan Bebbington speaking] And I like Chapter Four in that respect which is Ian's chapter on 'Before research method becomes methodising' because Chapter Three and Four read together tells you to slow down a bit and to think very clearly
about...what is the object of your research, what are you seeking to understand?
And then to select, but not over-select, the right methods the right theories and the right development and I really second that sense in which we all feel we have to, you know, genuflect to some conceptual domains when in fact some of the things that are going on are substantive and interesting in their own right and they don't need to be over theorised, but because you know the world as it stands at the moment is, well it's too exciting to be fair, but there's there's a huge amount of opportunity to understand and contribute to a low carbon world, revitalising our natural resources, capital markets are starting to move in quite interesting ways to try to provide information about what investors are doing, so in that respect if you like it doesn't, I guess...it's easy for me to say as a longer-standing colleague perhaps, but actually to be more exciting in our design and our theories and our ideas and actually you know going for it in a bigger sense.

[Title: What is 'methodising'?]

[Ian Thomson] I think there's a little bit of...I don't know rebelliousness isn't the way, just being slightly you know kind of challenging and confronting and not actually taking things as as written, as read, if you know what I mean, and I was always struck by when you, when I went to talk to kind of people and I thought your stuff is really clever, really coherent and then they kind of tell you the story of how they made it up, how they had to fight people in their department and now people that you're just going, oh you just you just put your name and five numbers after it, and you go that's all you need to do is if they came, everything came fully kind of formed...

And it's very much this idea of starting to kind of wreck, I suppose it's a little bit like kind of Brendan, you kind of go back and you say well how did you do your research methods you know, how did you go about doing it? What was it that kind of made...excite... what made it exciting for you? And, you know and interesting that Jan says that you know that [Chapters] three and four fit together but I mean, myself and Brendan discovered that we had accidentally stumbled across a really good kind of piece by Swedberg which was kind of before before theory comes theorising, and it's about this idea of changing things from a kind of like a noun that's, or a story that somebody else is telling, into an active process that actually helps you with your work, helps you kind of understand what's what's actually going on.

And I...had been doing a little bit of work on this and suddenly realising that actually, well you know we're doing all this stuff...on theorising but nothing on method. And very much kind of like when you see method it's very much almost like a bit like McDonald's, you go in and you pick from a menu and you get the exact same thing every single time and you know it's relatively cheap and easy to do but it's you know kind of like it's destroying, potentially destroying the planet, and it's ultimately kind of like lacks any utility or value.

In that you know this idea that research methods is often seen as one of...is really boring, I mean people get bored with kind of method, you know they sort of like they get obsessed with different types of stuff. But actually it's a process of inquiry it's like trying to find things out about something, and I mean I think one of the interesting things is normally when you do this research design at the beginning that's when you know least about a topic.

Which sounds really bizarre isn't it, I mean just like one of the great things about the Swedberg stuff about theorisation is like you do the theory before you do anything, really? You know it's like, no. Like...we do the research time when you know least about a topic and then when you know, and...then you suddenly go oh, it wasn't very...I did it wrong, so it's just this idea of flipping these things on its head and actually saying well you know...let's challenge the kind of like the stuff was all get yourself a research question, then get yourself a, you know do some reading get yourself a research...design your research and find stuff out and that'll work every single time.

It's never worked for me and...I know Brendan wrote a long time ago with kind of Bill Lee and Chris Humphries and messy stuff that I remember taught you your reflection on how you did your PhD and analysing all these interviews, and when you actually get that, how it kind of works if you like and what makes it work often is missing. And that's really what we're kind of trying to do in this one here. But I mean I think for me this there is a try and avoid over over-methodising, be strong be kind of strong in your own idea be courageous, look at the issues, but really for me the big thing is we need to be more domain driven rather than prior research driven, you know, and and I think that that's it.

One thing I think that comes through from a lot of our research is we haven't got it right. We haven't, Brendan mentioned you know kind of like the big data, we haven't got, we haven't got it right you know some of our kind of methods are not there some of our data is not there certainly the state of the planet suggests that we've not, we've not got it right so we need to kind of be there, to be there to be different and I think in particular and and certainly I think Carlos and Jan's stuff on bringing sustainability science into there and starting off with the sustainability, starting off with the science, and letting that unwind and see where it takes you. It doesn't mean you can't do it the other way you know, really don't you know we need, we need, all these different angles to take it from, but there does seem a space to, let's start from a different, let's start from the domain and...start work and start working from there.

But don't do your research design right at the beginning [laughs] when you know least about a subject and then you're surprised why it doesn't work, you know.

[Title: How is Environmental Accounting related to transformative governance?]

[Carlos Larrinaga] Yeah, I think that something important in the design of the Handbook was of course taking stock of...what you know we know about environmental accounting. But there is also the same time this objective of opening up environmental accounting of, do you know, we have like in Part Four we have this you know global to local perspective or local to global perspective. And we have in Part Five we have like emerging environmental issues and the answer that environmental accounting can give to those emerging issues. And there is I think in the handbook this perspective that okay, I mean environmental accounting as practiced by organisations is something that we need to study, but environmental accounting is beyond what current organisations are doing and we need to imagine environmental, the future of environmental accounting, and so this is a little bit the perspective for, in Chapter Six, the perspective when when you know there is this idea of whether we need to adapt global socioecological systems or we need more performed transformations to deal with sustainability. And of course I mean this is an open issue so...Chapter Six is providing a back, you know like, a starting point maybe for this development in the future and connecting with, you know those, the...issues that were discussed before by Brendan, Jan and Ian.

There is this idea that of, for example of theories, we have theories, we have been using theories, but those theories are...patterns of interpretation that led us to the present situation so probably we will need to be more, and you know supporting Brendan's argument, we need to be a little bit more courageous in proposing new theories because I mean, if there is a future the future is emerging from considering those changes, those transformations, so we need to participate, echoing Brendan's comments, we need to participate and...you know provide some theories rather than importing theories into the field. And in this regard I think that accounting has a very important role to play, I mean I won't repeat the arguments that are in the Handbook in different chapters about the need to consider topics of relevance like climate change in Part Five or oceans, agriculture that are not usually seen in the, in the environmental accounting literature or, do you know, think about socioeconomic arrangements that are not the corporation are not the usual organisations like cities or supply chains or stock markets or even entities of a smaller you know size like, I don't know, the fishing vessel in the fishing industry. And you know and so on and so forth, but then if we think about what is needed for for transformative you know sustainable governance then probably we will need to theorise accounting in other ways to think about how accounting can provide visibility about sustainability or unsustainability in different, in new ways that reflect those issues, that matter that reflect those you know novel entities that are not usually in the, in the radar of environmental accounting research, and we we will need also to have a look at the political implications probably.

Something that, I mean it's not so present or when it is present in environmental accounting it is approached from a very distant stance which is the the politics of the changes that are needed for a sustainable future that you know in terms of population, in terms of... I don't know personal mobility, or in terms of you know which is very much related to a personal freedom and mass tourism. I'm speaking from Spain so mass tourism is very important for the Spanish economy, but I mean we will, we will need to learn to live without mass tourism for a sustainable future because it doesn't, I mean, unless we are convinced of the contrary, you know it's something that we need to to investigate and see how accounting can participate for the governance of those you know profound changes that need to happen in the future for, you know to sustain life, to sustain human life in the, in the planet.

[Matthew Sorola] So Carlos, I know, I know that you do a lot of work with scholars from around South America, and do you, do you see kind of engaging with those communities that are not you know North American or European, do you see... a path towards that, towards the future that we're talking about here today coming from engaging with those South American communities but also engaging with them in a way that's not trying to exploit the knowledge and say how do we just take these things out and put them over here, but actually engage with, with those insights, with insights that aren't Western European, North American, those kinds of insights that we're more familiar with inside of, in environmental accounting.

[Carlos Larrinaga] I mean the so-called advanced economies or the Western economies are those who have led the, you know, the environment to the current situation in the last centuries, so probably we need to learn a lot of when, and when I'm thinking about you know new theories, new ways, new patterns of understanding what is going on I'm also thinking about ideas coming from the, from the South.

I'm currently, I'm very interested in some ideas that are coming from Latin America. There is a sociologist, Santos, who is talking about the epistemologies of the South so with the new ways of, there is this perspective of the coloniality about, ideas about how to, you know, contribute. It's not just to say 'hey we are here' but also to contribute for, to generate new ideas for everyone and there is you know ideas about the growth about the, you know, this...notion of the good life rather than you know the life depending on a growing, never-ending growth of resources needed for to make us happy, so. And you know those, those ideas I think that are very important, and I'm just aware of ideas coming from South America but I guess that in other parts of the globe there are some... similar ideas developing and in the Handbook we there is...the fourth Part of the Handbook is trying to deal with these new perspectives that are emerging in different parts of the globe.

It's, you know, it's not, I'm sorry ...it's not regions, because regions is like you know demeaning a little bit importance, it's parts of the globe, important parts of the globe.

[Ian Thomson ] I think it's important that we, that we try and do in the framework is to look to the future and to generate things and too often I think we restrict ourselves to theory as explaining empirical facts or observations rather than actually using theories to actually, to kind of project forward, which is one of their, one of their functions and to actually to imagine, and I was struck, I was in a seminar not so long ago, interdisciplinary, and he said there's no future in accounting and what they meant was, they didn't say there's no future in accounting, what they said is when you look at accounting it typically doesn't deal with the future. If it does it only deals with it in terms of catastrophe or, or ideas, or we wait until it's finished then we pick apart the bones and say ah, here's how this this economy destroyed itself, or here's how this, kind of this product actually ended up kind of wiping out a couple of ecosystems yeah. And I think that certainly one of the things that we need to maybe to do is to use this, is to also to start to frame the future to think about it and I really like the kind of, you know, Carlos, of this generation we're generating knowledge, we're generating kind of ideas, and it's not just about documenting kind of past failures or problematising, but let's use the kind of some of the theories and the ideas to work forward. And...actually in that space there because I think it's an area that's under, underdeveloped and I think it was really, really kind of like that kind of Chapter Six is so important because it actually kind of says look you know there's another century ahead, there's another two centuries, there's millennia ahead, t's not just about now it's about something else.

[Title: What is the future of Environmental Accounting, or what would you like it to be?]

[Jan Bebbington] I'm happy to start and I'll be very predictable if you've read anything from me in the last two or three years. For me it has to be a sustainability science approach and that means that it's interdisciplinary so you work with ther disciplines to understand the nature of the problem and, and on that basis other disciplines are amazed by accounting when they find out about us, but mostly no one ever finds out about us and so that's something maybe about our own insularity but also maybe our own insecurity. So accountants have a huge amount of contribution to make in interdisciplinary enquiries into you know whether or not in my case the seafood industry but there's so many places where, where more and better accounting would help. And then for me it has to also be transdisciplinary so...and it might be just I'm no good at theory, maybe that's the problem but [laughs] in terms of actually starting in a world of practice and problems and, and opportunities to get to know what people need and to try to craft alongside them the things that would help them achieve better outcomes and in that I would then buttress that with theories and ideas and ways of actually achieving that outcome.

So for me that's the thing I really enjoy and I totally get it's not for everyone and it shouldn't be for everyone because it's you know everyone has their own path to play through their, the work they like to do and who they like to do it with, but for me I would hope that we'll see more of that but also more self-confident environmental and social accounting scholars able to partake of those opportunities.

[Brendan O'Dwyer] My reflections would would be regarding how I'd like to see the whole issue of environmental accounting and reporting conceived of and enacted on in practice. And I'd like to...see a situation arising whereby this is the mainstream, that this mainstream non-mainstream separation becomes pointless and that in...a new generation of students it becomes normalised. Not normalised in a way that neuters the difficult issues and the contentious issues, which is happening right now I think in some, in some contexts, but in a manner whereby you're willing to engage with the issues, you're willing to understand how accounting impacts on the issues, and how the issues impact on accounting more generally, in a financial reporting sense, in a management accounting sense, and an assurance sense.

Whereas this sense of us not continually having to feel like a so-called other in that, without of course being completely subsumed and normalised in a manner whereby everything becomes neutered and all becomes nice and gentle, it should never be gentle, it should also always be problematic. I think that's...that is something I think that may well happen in the near future because some of the things that have happened in the accounting profession, however cynical some people might like to be, have been quite fundamental in the past five or six years given what I was experiencing in a Republic of Ireland context back in the early 1990s, sorry late 1990s I'm not quite that old.

But there are things that always go into my, come into my mind when I think about how this is going, because when I when I do speak to individuals who are engaged in this area it's almost like they are in some special club or in some special clique. It shouldn't feel like that, that should not be the way it is because that's not going to evolve anything because you're going to end up in your little bubble talking to each other and having a wonderful time scratching each other's backs and agreeing on all the major issues or not as the case might be. So my idea is that...that if it spreads, if it spreads, becomes more engaging brings more people in, in a challenging manner, that's...somewhat idealistic but I don't think it's unachievable in any way at all, and I think you know, I shouldn't have to come to you Matthew and say, oh Matthew I'm a social and environmental accounting scholar, I'm an accounting scholar who happens to look at social and environmental issues as part of my research.

[Ian Thomson] And I absolutely kind of agree with that in terms of, I remember I was talking at an alternative accounting conference and I'd actually done a little bit of research in terms of what people count as alternative accounts you know and these are, these are, these are things that most people consume, and actually there's sometimes the financial report, they're the unusual one they're the least read. When we look at some of the accounting entities attached to... ...we talk about cities or communities, we talk about our kind of our regulators, we talk about the products, we talk about the processes, we talk about issues that actually can concern us. And I think that these are the things that we encounter and I see as trying to move away from the, you know the corp, just purely the corporate entity as the only entity to look at things, it's a really important one.

I did a strange thing, I discovered that there's about 45000 listed companies in the world and about 300 million businesses, yet so much of what we do focuses on these 45000 businesses that are nowhere near the kind of the things that actually kind of like that matter they do...they're seats of power, but one way to start to you know kind of like to unbalance this this focus is to look at these alternative accounts, to look at these different ways to look at what matters, and to provide good strong robust compelling evidence-based kind of like base based kind of things of the kind of the some of the the you know the existential misery and the crisis that are actually being caused but actually just open up our eyes to these, to these entities and how that, how that, how that then, and how we can use the if you like the...I suppose the kind of robustness and the power of accounting, accountability, assurance, all these things, and I mean Jan mentioned something, it's really interesting that when you go talk to other disciplines they come up with accounting and reporting as a solution you know more often, more often than not they want better indicators they want better kind of values you know and we need, we need to actually do that.

So in the future I think it's more about legitimating the kind of study of different entities it's about trying to kind of like to look at different, different institutions, you know expanding kind of beyond just simply the you know one dimension of it and actually and then to look at how do we get people to engage with these accounts because it's all very well producing information, there's some kind of wonderful data out there on impact on systems, but nobody seems to be aware of it and nobody seems to be using it, so how can we make that appropriable into decision process and make it live, and make it make a difference, because I think one of the problems is you, we often stop at the let's cut out that, let's measure things properly, let's value things kind of accurately, let's take into all these different factors, but sometimes we miss the factors who's actually using this and what difference does it make. So kind of like a flip into this, into the stakeholder which I think is back to where we start you know 1987, that kind of stakeholder thinking and how can we make stakeholder, stakeholders really kind of really matter in sort of environmental accounting and accountability.

[Brendan O'Dwyer] If I may just go back to that idea of interdisciplinarity for a moment given what you were saying Ian, what you were saying Jan, even if you look at the the standard organisation studies management literature now and how that's addressed corporate social responsibility and social reporting in the past 15 years as well, it's incredible the developments that have occurred there completely oblivious to what's gone on in the context of this book, and some of the individuals I speak to get quite surprised when I introduce them to work in this particular area. Now there are exceptions to that in that deal as well like, so it's very, that cross-fertilisation is very important and as an anecdote my last PhD student I asked a professor of urban geography to be one of the examiners of the PhD, I knew, I knew of his work a Dutch professor a wonderful individual in the University of Amsterdam, and we bought him out for dinner before the PhD viva as well and he just said, I had no idea that accounting could be so darn relevant and interesting, you know that, that's...to a large extent to do with the student, but at the same time you could really engage with the models, what was actually happening and so you do get very surprised. Then again I should say I'm a very very big fan of the urban geography social geography field in general, it's one of the most fascinating complex fields imaginable, so sophisticated.

[Carlos Larrinaga] I will add something which is also important I think in the current juncture, is okay we are, you know getting closer to science and at the same time there is more and more, or less and less trust in science in society. So I think that if I think in accounting, in environmental accounting in 20 years, I would like to see accounting playing a role in you know enhancing trust in science, in earth science, in socioecological system science because I think it's, this is...massively important. I mean we are, we are seeing now lots of trends of people you know denying the reality of the planetary boundaries and etc etc so I think that this is something also very important for the, for the, for the future to consider by environmental accounting scholars.

[Jan Bebbington] And now you know Matt why I wanted to write it with these, these three other gentlemen as part of the guide. I didn't know they believed half of those things and so it's a real joy not to sort of finish a piece of work and rush off to the next thing, but actually to have a chance to have a a conversation about it and a conversation with a broader array of people, and just creating space for that conversation.

So yeah these are clever guys we ought to take more notice of them.

[Matthew Sorola] With that I'd just like to say thank you to Jan, Carlos, Brendan and Ian for taking the time to discuss the handbook with me today, and thank you all very much.

[Brendan] Thank you very much Matt.

[Jan] Kia ora.

[Carlos] Thank you Matt, for everything.

[Ian] Yeah thank you. thank you.

[Jan Bebbington] We are joined here today by three colleagues who have contributed to the biodiversity, the water and the carbon accounting chapters in the Handbook. They are Shona Russell who is the Co-director of the Centre for Social Environmental Accounting Research and Associate Director for the Centre of Study of Philanthropy and Public Good and senior lecturer at the School of Management at the University of St Andrews. Rob Charnock is a co-investigator and research lead of the FRC scenario analysis research project with the Alliance Manchester Business School and lastly but not least with Clément Feger who is an Assistant Professor at AgroParisTech and a researcher at the University of Montpellier. He is also the science director of the ecological accounting chair, co-director of the economy and society department at the Collège des Bernardins - if I've pronounced all of that correctly which I know I will not have. So thank you Shona, Clément and Robert and welcome to the session.

So my first question is really ... because you would have read each other's chapters and would have thought about them, and thought about them in relation to your own: what common elements do you see as emerging between these three chapters, in terms of research approaches, and/or theories, and/or findings? And we might ... we can start with one and we can iterate around to some of the others as we go on.

And so Shona, I wonder if you can start off because water is a uniting feature ... that's a feature of both biodiversity but also a feature that comes to the fore with floods and climate change as well: over to you.

[Shona Russell] I think all the chapters are motivated to varying degrees to consider how accounting can contribute to global challenges and to see merits in accounting both for internal audiences and external audiences (if I think about an organisational form of accounting) as being pertinent here to those responses but I would say ... a third ... another point of commonality is that we are thinking about the relevance of accounting beyond organisations to consider their use of accounting as ... as part of environmental governance and regulation, as part of a policy instrument and that I would suggest all the authors are keen to critically examine the implications of using accounting to understand and regulate activities with regards water, biodiversity and carbon: to think about that from an ethical point of view, political point of view and a technical point of view.

And I think that that's ... a frontier that I hope we can engage with in the course of the conversation but also to invite colleagues and students to reflect on that as well, to join in the conversation of what are the lessons we can glean from accounting and what are the potential limitations of it.

[Robert Charnock] Thank you Shona, I think the observations of commonalities there are spot on. I think ... maybe I'll ... it could be repeating some of those points but one thing I thought all the chapters saw is that there's a role of accounting not just within the organisation but at the national level and at the intergovernmental level as well which is what you've already said Shona.

But if I just, as a starting point, stick with the organisation ... I think, I felt, I noticed one thing was that when we talk about accounting across these different issues we're not just talking about disclosure. We're not just talking about what this looks like in a particular report. Now that is obviously very well established in the literature as each of the chapters will show, but as these issues mature and as organisations try to grapple with them it poses lots of management accounting style problems as well.

So a lot of the uses of accounting can be as said quite internal: almost more about understanding the problem, deciding on what the appropriate response is and developing the plan for how to work on that. Now that ... most of that can take place without it being disclosed - some of it may be disclosed in the end. So I think it partly raises the question of, you know, a provocative version could be ... where do disclosures fit within all this maybe.

But I think as well it's about understanding that if accounting has multiple roles what's the role of disclosure, what's the role of the more management accounting element, and then also what are the conditions in which all those things can be made to work together.

And my impression was that each of the chapters understood that there's disclosures but there's also very much now a rapid growth in the inner working of accounting across water, carbon and biodiversity.

[Clément Feger] Well I'm building on this...I, of course I share the views of Shona and and Rob. I also think that what is making ...what is a common element of the three chapters is the multi-level perspective of how accounting can help organise accountabilities: within organisations but also across organisations and at different geographical level as well and institutional levels.

Like, for instance, for biodiversity it's trying to bridge both targets (ecological targets that are being set by different international conventions such as the CBD or such as the Ramsar Conventions) but also how disconnects and aligns with corporate disclosure and also and maybe more specifically ... in the in the water and biodiversity ... chapters (and this is something to be discussed) but also at an inter-organisational levels between governments, business, civil society and how can accounting help to frame issues and accountabilities at these levels and reshape things at this level.

So ... and there are similar questions about how to reconceptualise both accounting, the possibility, the possibilities of accounting as a changing force and ... the perimeters within which this needs to happen. And the second point, I think is ... that is put forward more explicitly in the carbon chapter, that I believe is also true in the two other chapters, is how do we organise a dialogue in academia, but also beyond academia between, on the one side, technical issues of how you create those accounts (and all the debates around that) but also that we need to equip a discussion about accounting and how it reaches to more philosophical questions ... framing questions about how different choices of how we account will change the way we tackle those important issues, make links between them ... so having both this space both technical but also keeping in mind the idea of having a discussions about these technical debates is something that I think is in the three chapters, and is very important.

[Jan Bebbington] And I was going to work up to this question, but all three of you have raised it to a certain extent in terms of particularly thinking about ...the debate about the role of accounting and these assemblages, and in these areas. So there is a sense in which there's a reasonably well-founded philosophical-ethical position that says that we shouldn't account for nature. And yet by the very nature of these three chapters, but also through organisational activities we appear to be accounting for nature.

And I wonder how you feel about that statement [that] we should not account for nature: that it's somehow bringing the wrong sort of things into the problem area. And I'm not going to answer, but I can say I feel conflicted. So but I'm not going any further than that so ... I'll go Rob, Clément and then Shona in this one.

So Rob you draw the short straw on this one.

[Robert Charnock] Okay I'll start then because this is a question that I'm sure I've discussed with you in the past, as well maybe going back (gosh) well over a decade now for me. And I remember reading one particular line in one of Anthony Hopwood's papers which when I look ... I'm not going to quote it perfectly here ... but it was along the lines of: a dream of a post-calculative society is a very long way away ... if it should even be entertained at all.

I think at the time it captured that dilemma I was having about why are we applying numbers to something, that's it to nature, why are we trying to quantify everything about nature in order to manage it. Isn't there a different starting point with how we can grapple with and resolve these issues that are so prevalent around the world and I think the point that struck a chord with me in that paper from Hopwood was irrespective of what the starting point is there's always going to be trade-offs to have in mind.

I think for Hopwood he was talking about it primarily in terms of with any one issue and the correct way of tackling that one issue. But I think with all three people here today we can talk about the trade-offs between different issues as well in the sustainability agenda.

So I think the point is when you're deciding on the options to use and the way forward, I think - at least my starting point with that was, there may be a role of calculation in assessing what those tradeoffs are and assessing what their impact might be. So in that sense it's a question of how do you choose what to do and at least to me that was my starting point in thinking about where calculation, quantification maybe fits into this whole puzzle.

[Clément Feger] Thank you ... this is a very important question. I would start by building on Rob Gray's statement that, you know, human beings are account giving and demanding creators. So they ... we always account to one another about something that we try to tackle with so that we try to manage and so the question I may ask is: is there a world where we don't, or where we don't naturally, account for nature.

So I would much prefer a world where we try to enrich the debate about how to account for something and make it as explicit as possible so that we can have a political debate about what is the right way to accomplish things, in order to organise ourselves to manage those things, and to tackle those issues, and to address those issues.

There has been a tendency to think that accounting for something is only accounting for the economic value of something, and so reducing entities that are ontologically rich and contested and political in themselves, by nature, to reduce them to something that you know ... that there is only one way to account for it and and I think my point of view is that we're now moving away from this debate and that we're seeing more and more, and in the three chapters as well, we're seeing more and more frames where we try to navigate these difficult questions of what is the best way to accomplish things in order to manage them and to make them part of our world and to make them, to maintain them, and restore them rather than reduce them.

But a better and I think this is a key ... this should be a key focus of accounting scholarship, which is to critically examine yet to make debatable suggestions about how to account for natural entities.

[Jan Bebbington] Super, Shona you get the last word on this for the meantime anyway.

[Shona Russell] This is probably something to edit out, but I think what's interesting here is the way my mind went to account and what we've heard is around accounting is calculation, accounting is quantification, different forms of accounts giving and receiving.

And then I wanted to add to that, I guess, the way I was thinking: which should we account for in nature - well we already do in multiple ways, what are the implications of quantification and perhaps monetisation, and what happens as a result of that.

And I'm not sure that 'should we account for nature' is a useful question anymore because we do it and the accounting that goes on seems similar, like it's a calculative practice right whether we're using (well I'm not a scientist so there's confession) but there's a lot of calculation in many different scholarships so I would hope that it's more how are we going to account for nature, how do we in everyday situations, why do those everyday accounts perhaps get lost or other forms of accounts privileged in decision-making consequences, and how might we develop a richer repertoire of accounts to support a deeply ... philosophical question of what it means to be human and to be connected into the non-human world.

So ... yeah again with my teaching, like what are the implications of this, I think there's lots of experiments we could do where we go out and account with other people of an ecosystem, or a space and in doing so we exemplify the choices and the practices of everyday accounting within organisations and we can do it creatively without necessarily having to adopt the organisation, how many costs is associated with producing this product in a manufacturing system.

[Jan Bebbington] What I'm also interested in getting a sense from yourselves is that ... accounting, you've spoken about these commonalities, and there's themes, and there's parallels between these three chapters, and parallels between these three areas of accounting so what would our whole environmental account of an organisation look like.

[Clément Feger] I think on these issues of how we re-centre accounting on ecological issues or ecological systems ...it's difficult to say from the outset what the accounting should be because this/these accounting forms should ... are always linked to pragmatic management situations that are by nature very heterogeneous.

And I guess this is a challenge, but it's also why accounting, and especially all the management accounting scholarship, and critical accounting scholarship on management accounting brings us, which is to navigate ... to help us to navigate these complexities while trying to to frame some accounting device that can be adapted to these situations.

I just want to make a last point on this ... I think one important thing though from my point of view is to always find the right balance between the temptation to account for everything, which is to try to have a full representation of the whole system which then doesn't help with navigating the system or guiding action.

And accounting for the key elements of the systems that will help actors organise around this entity and I think this is ... and I find in a lot of ways we're tempted by the first one because it's more maybe elegant, or it's more reassuring that we account for everything, but at the end of the day we account for people who then act on this entity and we need to find the right information that is helpful for them - so that's my take on this.

[Jan Bebbington] I'll pass over to Shona.[Shona Russell] Clément's contribution there is really helpful for thinking about this full versus maybe more pragmatic ...emergent form of accounting and when you ask the question Jan, I wondered well what would motivate an account, a multi-faceted account, and so immediately I thought World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet reports and then they have these ecosystem hot spots ... so what would be the motivation there? Is a matter of concern, and who's concerned, and then how might that position frame what is seen to be the most appropriate account, or the extent to which it's the fullest account.

And so I guess that's one thing is, are we looking for an account that encapsulates carbon, biodiversity and water because of these resources are problematic (like pollution or degradation)or is, and therefore needs, an intervention or a management practice ... or are we also, is there potential at looking at situations of where management has been successful, or there's been regeneration, or conservation and therefore it's what accounts were utilised in that process that enabled people to develop a holistic emergent picture, to then intervene and learn in the process.

So I'm not sure I'm going to be answering your question but it's another facet behind the question of creating this account - well what for and why, and what would be the consequences of it.

[Jan Bebbington] And we might double back round to that but I'll let Rob go first and then we might open up that box a bit further because I think it's a really good set of questions.

[Robert Charnock] Yeah I completely agree, I think Clément and Shona have covered so much and just to reiterate one particular point of Shona's. I think the question of why, why would we want the singular account of this. If we try to tackle sustainability as an entire issue in one solution it's hard to do that for each individual sustainable development goal let alone the entire basket of sustainability issues but I suppose that what I'll try and do ... Clément said we shouldn't try to give a definitive answer and while I agree that's not as interesting as this ... so in termsof trying to predict what could happen, or what this might look like ... what you might see is quite a lot of progress being made on each of these individual issues, like we are seeing across water, biodiversity and carbon.

But as these make progress, and they're tackled on their own because they're complex enough as they are to have their own standards and their own accounting systems, where a holistic view is required you might find the emergence of meta standards that would be more about saying, you know, across water, biodiversity and carbon this is how we think you should approach each of these three issues and you can report that in an aggregated form as well - to provide that aggregated picture. So very much using what we've built from the bottom up if you like the accounting system but creating some aggregated view of what that looks like.

As well as having that kind of meta standard about an aggregated reporting and how you should use different standards, I wonder whether that account will also have a future orientation about the goals that we're trying to achieve. So instead of being a disclosure about what's in the past, an aggregated form will be about the degree of alignment (for example) with global goals because in that regard it's not just providing the snapshots or this look into the past of an organisation but it's looking at very much where the organisation is going and whether the organisation is aligned with all of our host of environmental goals for example.

[Jan Bebbington] Over to you again Clément.

[Clément Feger] Yes, just a quick point building on what Rob said. I think this is where we touch also differentiation points between the three chapters because of the very nature of the entities that we deal with in these different chapters and the easiness, I know it's more complex than that, but of elaborating commensurability between issues whether you're talking about carbon where it's not easy but it's the easiest, and then water where you had a lot of work at the European level, at the national level, at the watershed level of creating these commensurability frameworks and biodiversity which is by nature heterogeneous and I think this is where we touch to different sets of difficulties I would say ... and also these difficulties it's not only about commensurability, it's about the the role of, let's say landscape level or local issues, that are of course not the same at the carbon level ...

I mean in the carbon issue area or in the water and biodiversity issue areas and this draws back to the question of the perimeters of these accounting entities that we try to define which I believe should be a mix of both ecological realities and at the same time of how responsibilities can, or should, or are already distributed around these entities which together frame the kind of perimeters where we could do something with accounting for sustainability.

[Robert Charnock] Clément, can I just ask you a question on this ... I find it really interesting and the focus on commensuration I've often thought we have global warming potentials for greenhouse gas emissions which means we can convert a whole range of gases into carbon dioxide equivalents. It's a beautiful piece of work, quite complex to put together, but it allows that commensuration.

But one thing we also have with climate change is we have a metric for the aggregated global impact of climate change, namely warming, so we have a target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius well below two and aiming pursuing efforts towards 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.

But for biodiversity, do you have a single metric? And Shona as well, do you have that for water?

[Clément Feger] Well there are recent developments in trying to develop science-based targets for biodiversity there are also developments in footprints tools that would be based on mean species abundance index which basically ...compare the natural or ideal state of habitat for a different set of species and the state of degradation in which it is, and different set of actors are trying to push for this.

For me the question with this ... I think these kind of tools and metrics play a role as long as they don't shortcut, or how can I say, erase the heterogeneity of entities that are being, or that should be, accounted for in the process. And I think for me this is a heated debate rightnow ... I think my personal view on this is, yes it's useful to have aggregated metrics, but it's also useful to have disaggregated metrics that helps to manage the granularity ... the right granularity at which these problems arise and are negotiated.

So I think it's a real research question here trying to see how ... the advantages and disadvantages of both, and how we can go from one to the other, and trying to find some commensuration going from one to the other ... but not giving commensuration a role that it shouldn't play to my mind because it creates a risk of de-politicising something that is deeply political.

[Shona Russell] Wow [laughs] I mean just on a global metric I think with water because it seems to be more of a local issue or a localised issue compared to maybe the sense in which carbon or climate is global: very conscious the caveat is, of course, climate manifest itself differently and depending on where we are in the world. But in the EU of course there's good water quality status but again like Clément I would be interested not in advocating for either aggregation at global level or disaggregation but rather to be, I guess, fluent in the multiple targets and the implications of it but also to think about ...what are we accounting for.

So we've developed new accounts, new accounting technologies, we set up new systems of reporting ... well what are the outcomes of those accounting systems? Are they achieving or supporting science-based target achievement, are they connecting into the outcomes we wish to achieve, or the governance standards we wish to achieve ... because sometimes my sense is that we account a lot, we report a lot, but what there seems to be a disconnect between the accounts and the either achievement of 1.5 degreesf or climate, or other biodiversity targets.

So maybe that's something you wish to comment on there is, what's the outcome that we're looking for, are we achieving it through these interventions?

[Robert Charnock] Yeah ... I don't know if I'm understanding ... commenting on what/why the interest in one single metric because I completely take the point that's an oversimplification of a hugely complex issue.

And I suppose the reason I ask is partly it kind of links to one observation I had about other commonalities between our chapters, and that we're all very interested in the governance of these issues as well. How we act on tackling these issues, but in doing so we're not talking about what's the role of the state in some hierarchy controlling society, we're recognising there's lots of different groups involved in trying to tackle the issue ... so it's very much an understanding that there's lots of different groups that have a role in the governance, in the regulation of the issue.

And I suppose my observation with climate change is that having a common global goal has always had a bit of a coordinating effect on that because it's ... got people focused on a particular target in the future. Now there's lots of criticisms about that target but in a sense it has, I think you could argue, made quite a big impact in giving a basis for stopping asking ... how are we ever going to understand the complexities of climate change, and start saying, time is a factor, we need to ... start doing something soon on this. Let's aim in that direction and figure it out as we go.

[Clément Feger] I just also want to, and again like building on what you just said, and also pickin gup on something that Shona raised ... which is focusing on environmental outcomes, but also wondering about who is actively trying to reach those environmental outcomes and I think not all actors are on an equal footing on this.

And this relates to something that I think appears at the end of the biodiversity chapter which is the strategic turn, in some ways, of accounting which is trying to put accounting at the service of ... conservation action, or climate actions, or water actions ... that is, we all know when we look at field situations around these issues that there are some people who actively hold other people accountable on some issues and it's the first priority, and it's the maybe those ones were the accountants of nature ... who of course try to enrol others in this accounting and accountability for the Earth in, some ways.

But there is this question of who accounting is working, who accounting and critical accounting scholarship is working with and for ... in what kind of alliances ... which also relates to actually wider debates in the critical accounting literature on not only being critical but also assuming that we want the content to be performative in a certain direction and I think this is still something that is quite difficult.

[Jan Bebbington] I want to pick up on two elements of that, the first one is that in the commissioning of the handbook it was for environmental accounting ... it wasn't for social and environmental accounting and myself and the co-editors struggled with that a little bit because we wanted to figure out where we would put the notion of social justice, because to have environment separate from social seemed artificial and quite difficult.

And at one stage we had imagined that we might have a whole chapter on social and ecological justice but that didn't come to pass, so we've tried to deal with it in the opening chapter. And I think we have to a certain extent but I feel it is a weakness of the text as a whole ... is that equity and justice element doesn't come to the fore as strongly as it might do.

In each one of your areas, can you think of any sort of practical or research orientated work that really takes the ecological dimension and connects really strongly to the justice dimension. And I know it's out there, ... don't feel like you can't say the obvious, because the obvious is also a part of this conversation.

And that justice and equity shadow, sort of, sits in and behind, and between a large number of chapters in the Handbook.

[Shona Russell] I think water's maybe an easier one to do, or an obvious one, in terms of justice so maybe there's social justice around communities being located near instance of pollution or industrial areas and then ... I think there is an opportunity here for research around social movements and accounting and accountability in connection to pollution incidents - so that would be on that aspect.

I think there's another perhaps area around water allocation and the decision making that's undertaken with regards allocation to water ... where we may find certain economic interests being able to participate in certain decision making processes more so than others and that may lead to transformation of the resource itself as opposed to ... and perhaps a favouring of economic value attributed to the use of the resource as opposed to the other benefits around it.

So those are two maybe to start off the conversation about areas of injustice and inequity in connection to water, both in river systems but also resource and that may be worth thinking about.

[Robert Charnock] Perhaps one thing in the history of climate negotiations comes to before here which is a principle of common but differentiated responsibility - who has a responsibility to tackle greenhouse gas emissions first? Is it developing nations where there's the potential for rapid increases in greenhouse gas emissions, or should it be the ... developed nation who've already benefited from all of those emissions in the past and are now able to transition to different versions of economics, or transition away from some of the dirtier fuels to make the reduction sooner.

I think the argument and common but differentiated responsibilities is that everybody has a task but really the point is that developed nations need to act first because they've benefited most from pollution so far.

Yet the way you see that manifest is then, if you look at say the scenarios for achieving a global target like 1.5 degrees Celsius, well the different emissions trajectories to each nation represent that common but differentiated responsibility so if you're talking about pathways for any individual nation to hit their own version of that climate target well it's very much within their their plans for the next decades ... so to me that is where the justice component has really strong root in the history of intergovernmental climate negotiation in that whose responsibility is it to act first, and at what point that the different nations really need to make dramatic reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Maybe slightly different than what you're looking for Jan but that really comes through to me quite clearly in the history.

[Clément Feger] On biodiversity I would say that this question you raise about environmental justice is connecting directly to heated debates within the conservation community and it's ... connected with the difficulty of holding together environmental outcome, environmental effectiveness targets or objectives ... and at the same time recognising and organising responsibilities for this ... and at the same time, you know, tackling the issue of poverty.

Because in lots of biodiversity conservation contexts, especially in the South ... I don't know if this expression is obsolete but in developing countries ... it's both very intricated and one risk is to not talk at all, and not deal at all with environmental justice questions, while developing new accounting systems, new tools, trying to find the right balance and trying to help assign responsibilities but also reallocate resources to those who depend most on ecosystems for their everyday living is a real challenge and again I think critical accounting scholarship can help a lot here by going beyond just the technical ... also going beyond just the wishful thinking and creating accountability frameworks that try to balance those. But it's not easy.

[Jan Bebbington] I'd now like to ... look more towards the future, but also looking more towards future scholars and practitioners.

So I ... have a question about education and in particular...what is the core thing that you'd hope students would understand about this area. But also because this is such a super fast moving area, I wonder if you might also say about where ... the new and interesting things are emerging.

[Shona Russell] I think there's benefit to understanding the history of accounting and the environment, and where it came from, and its motivation, and that's why I think the Handbook is fantastic, and giving an account of that is the development of scholarship.

I think what I hear from our conversation is the need for students and future scholars to be able to ask questions and to work with others in other disciplines, and therefore I think it's maybe less of a cutting edge area but actually a practice of research and of scholarship which is curiosity, and I guess willingness and courage to connect with other places and other people, and to be brave in doing so... it can be a bit daunting to perhaps move outside the realm of accounting, or finance, or management but I think that the field has ... there's a lot of experience there, so that's maybe something to develop.

So take heart, be courageous, be curious and learn with others. In terms of of water itself, I was reflecting again on the social justice question, and of course water in a way has a public health agenda as much as it has an environmental agenda as well, and I think an area that's received much less attention is around sanitation and infrastructure. And I know that in the 80s and the 90s there was much more work on concerns about privatisation, different ways of organising water provision and sanitation provision, and I think there's potential merits in returning to some of those topics... particularly in line with SDGs, but also to recognise the intersection with public health that water has and that's something that I would encourage people to look at - especially if they're interested in the social justice elements too.

And just the final area, I guess is we've talked about nature-based solutions but water is implicated in agricultural production, and food production, and in energy production so I think maybe it's about being attuned to the interconnections between our areas and to have an interest in learning about the energy sector, or the agricultural sector, and understanding the touch points down into biodiversity, or carbon, or water that would be worthy of pursuing as these like nexus projects that come together … nexus issues that come together and that would motivate future research.

But I don't think well I certainly couldn't do it alone, I'm sure the colleagues are in this room and watching this panel, will be able to pursue these alone ... but I would advocate that some great research can come through collaboration.

[Robert Charnock] Now Shona I can absolutely not do any of this alone, I can't even come close to figuring out carbon alone ... let alone then trying to figure out a hybrid of carbon and biodiversity together.

I think the best advice I ever received is ... becoming a researcher an area you've got to kind of find your little box, everything inside that is stuff that you've got to know and you've got to be on top of, and you've got to be aware of the rest ...you can't try and master everything.

So in terms of advice to future scholars, for example if that's what you're asking Jan, I'd say ... there's excellent work across our three areas of accounting. What I do think there's potentially scope for people to become hybrids of two of those, or three of those ... to start working specifically at the intersection.

So instead of when I was doing my PhD, you know, the question was are you going to become the climate guy or something like that. And I don't think that's really the point, I think it's now you ... could try to carve out your own niche to be the somebody specialised in carbon and biodiversity, and exploring that into connection because it's such a huge space like you're saying with the growth of nature-based climate solutions in particular. So I would say there's room to try to occupy those hybrid spaces between the two, and do some really valuable work as part of the process.

But the other thing it comes back to, one of the discussions we have when writing the chapter, because we were we decided to be brave and try and define carbon accounting ... but ... you'll see in that part of the chapter we've got a few caveats about it's such a rapidly moving space that every definition that we have enjoyed reading and that we've believed in the last 10 years is no longer totally accurate.

So we attempted to provide something, but also recognize that you end up at the fuzzy edges of the definition quite soon. So to future scholars it's recognising that these things have to move, these things have to develop and have to evolve ... so trying to pin down a definition can be useful but don't get too stuck on that because what you'll find is you'll find new things that turn up that don't look like for me the carbon accounting I saw during my PhD but definitely have a role to play within that space in the world.

Now I look at it because it's relevant but ... you can't be too stuck on the definition itself, and those definitions will keep changing.

[Clément Feger] Regarding education from what I see and from what we've discussed also while writing these chapters I think what we see in the environmental field biodiversity, water, carbon is the multiplication of tools. Everybody is developing tools, everybody thinks that his tool will make a real change and that's great ... but I think where education can really bring something is to help see the frames beyond those tools, and the being able to discuss, and compare, and reflect on the implications of these ... of the technical choices of these tools that are ... I think it's in the carbon chapter ... that are always in the contested area or controversial area and I think it's the same for the two other chapters.

So we we need young ... students to be able to see beyond the tools in some ways and being able to to have the discussions that are needed. On this the second point, I think is important is to bring students to the field. If we are moving towards ... if we're moving slowly away from the formal organisation as the main focus of accounting research and thinking, then students need to go to the field and see what it is to try to tackle an environmental issue in a specific situation.

It's highly complex, there are already lots of people trying to do so and most of the time they are very limited in their action and I think students need to understand that, and they need to see that, and they need ... to be able then to see what accounting is thinking and what accounting maybe devices or methods can help in trying to tackle those issues - well making those issues more understandable and also providing potential solutions to these issues they first need to understand what it is to tackle an environmental issue and this can only be understood in the field.

And this brings to the last point which is areas for future developments. I think a challenge is that we talk about in the biodiversity chapter slightly ... but I think a challenge is to make also other disciplines and other actors in the fields that work on those issues hands-on to understand what accounting can bring to them, because most often when we try to do so they see accounting as a very a reduction of what they try to do as something that is very lay or that is very non-problematised and I think there is a maybe an effort to make, through cases I think ... through concrete cases, field cases, to show that accounting has a power to reshape the way we conceive of environmental issues, and the way we can act on environmental issues, to convince other scholars, other communities, environmental/scientific ... scientists sorry - the French is coming out – environmental scientists, and economists, and other ... that accounting has something very specific to bring which is making all the bridges ... connecting all the things that we've just discussed.

[Jan Bebbington] I'm going to draw the conversation to a close there and thank you enormously for it, and just provide some touchdown points that came out across the piece in all sorts of different ways which I think leave us with a really big and important questions. Question of boundaries and what's on periphery and what comes into an organisational account, and what's in another account.

The issue of commensuration, both its dangers and its possibilities. The idea of multi-level governance landscape scales and all of those intricacies that come from it. Heterogeneity is something that Clément said a couple of times, which is absolutely the case that this is not an area where there's a standard underlying reality to be dealt with. And intricate, that these very detailed and particular things that organisations wish to achieve, and we would wish for them to achieve, in this space has to be achieved.

Then flourishing, justice, capabilities, people's livelihoods, their well-being and all of that really rich deep ethical questions that arise from it. And then hybridity and interdisciplinarity -they're all very hard words to say at the end of August - but there are words that infuse all of this conversation.

And so I want to to thank our three colleagues who have contributed to that rich story line and hope that you found something of interest in there for you as well. Thank you.

[Carlos Larrinaga] So, thank you for joining us today in this presentation of the the handbook of environmental accounting. We are particularly focusing today in part four of the handbook which tries to bring together different perspectives of environmental accounting from around the globe.

So you know, we when we were organising the handbook, we were clear that it was important to bring together different perspectives, to consider different perspectives, and this is not only a question of epistemic of epistemic justice it is also a question of bringing together different perspectives that are needed to achieve sustainability, because we, you know, we think that sustainability is coupled with the so-called Western or modern way of organising the economy and society and colonialism.

So, you know to to imagine a future, to imagine a sustainable future, we think that there is a need to have an understanding of the different epistemic perspectives of environmental accounting and this is why we have here representatives from around the globe. We have contributors to the handbook for for chapters about Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region. And we will have a conversation about the handbook and where are the different perspectives about environmental accounting from the different contributors to the to the handbook.

So what do you think are the perspectives from Asia that have global implications, or I mean from,you know, drawing on your chapter?

[Tiffany Leung] Okay, my book chapter covered a social environment, environmental reporting practice in five Asian countries so including Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China.

Okay, so this region tends to have a rapid economic development and population growth and being the world manufacturing hub and as the main priority and that results in over consumption and increasing demand for non-renewable resources. But there is no uniform environmental reporting practice in Asia in Asia in this region due to the political regulatory system. Social factors, more importantly the cultural factors, are not, are not included in the book chapter.

So, today I would like to raise this important point to this conversation. So environmental accounting is mainly from the Western and European countries and being communicated partly in English. So, if we look at the companies in Asia countries appear to follow the Western and European standard to address the environmental and social practice e if we look at the previous study the qualitative and the quantitative environmental reporting practice is lagging behind that of their Western and European counterparts.

However, there is something that we learned from the Eastern culture for instance, like the Asian management style in relation to the environmental accounting practice. So, what we call broadly global.

So, this management style comes from the Asian philosophy such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and we talk about their environmental accounting in relation to humanity and nature. For example the peace, harmony, moderation, and flow of the universe. So these cultural attributes may have the potential contribution to the environmental accounting.

However, this is not easy to translate from the individual levels to the collective levels. So, I would like to bring this issue to this conversation today toto let the wider audience to think about this issue. So, this may be a potential research direction to let the other people to explore in more depth so this is my point today.

[Carlos Larrinaga] Thank you, Tiffany. So you, when you are saying that Asia in some respects are lagging behind the you know sustainability reporting compared to Western countries don't you think that this is because we are thinking in a particular way of doing things and that maybe there are other I mean the other aspects other issues that are you know lacking in the so-called Western perspective?

So, you were talking about these ideas of harmony, moderation and that this is missing somehow in the global perspective, so this is something that Asia could contribute to the global perspective.

[Tiffany Leung] Yes, yes, that I well I'm trying to think about because I spent a couple of days to think about this point because just now you mentioned about the quality of environmental reporting is that lag behind the Western and the European counterparts.

Perhaps this environmental reporting practice stems from the Western and European countries and we are using the International standard to measure our reporting practices. So this is kind of judgmental. So maybe, maybe kind of a bit unfair to our Asian countries, but at the same time in our culture we are maybe doing something related to environmental accounting, but we don't know actually we are doing this.

So, we are still learning in in this process so, so I've drawn from the, cultural perspectives to actually in Asian managers they are doing this but we do not explicitly do it in in the Western way. So this is my interpretation so.

[Carlos Larrinaga] Yeah, okay okay, so there are those two aspects the on the one hand there is this aspect of unfairness of evaluating something according to the Western standards, and on the other hand there is this, this idea of. We need to know different perspectives to enrich the global perspective. So we know we need to know, those, yeah, very very interesting thank you thank you Tiffany.

So what what about if I, we can move to, I don't know, Africa or the Pacific region as you prefer.

[Matthew Sorola] When I when I was trying to think of what the the global implications were of our chapter looking in inside of the the Pacific region I really kind of thought of there's a there's an industrial side to this where, you know the, a lot of the, a lot of the industry that you find inside of the Pacific, particularly inside of Australia, is kind of geared around that mining, agriculture, fishing, tourism, and there are a lot of issues that come up inside of the environmental accounting research that's been done inside of the Pacific region that are touching on problems that have that are problems on a global scale.

From an industrial perspective if you're looking inside the Pacific region ou can see that there are a lot of the problems that you find in you know European or American economy. You can see a lot of those same problems playing out inside of the Pacific. I don't want to say a smaller scale but in a in a different way.

The other the other thing that I wanted to point out for the global implications was the the environmental the environmental implications of you know when we're talking about environmental accounting, there's very obvious implications around climate change that have a direct impact in the Pacific in a very unique way the people, people living around, living around the Pacific, whether it's the on, you know, Australia and New Zealand, the smaller island nations around the Pacific are affected by climate change very dramatically, or that the impacts of climate change are affecting them very dramatically, and they're affecting them right now.

Whereas you know some Western countries like the US might have its problems with the environment as it's trying to develop its environmental accounting, but the the implications are only beginning to show themselves now. Whereas in the Pacific these problems have been have been building for many years now so this stuff isn't new

[Glenn Finau] Like, like you've mentioned the Pacific has there's an unfair irony here because we're always behind lagging behind all the other countries we're always like on the last to the party.
But in terms of climate change we're the first ones to actually feel its effects because we're small low-lying mostly islands, and for me it's okay how do then we try and address that? Well the literature that we that we, that we reviewed in our chapter basically and I think this comes from what Carlos also mentioned.
This colonial mentality where we are always following what the other bigger countries because we are I think maybe it's complex that they must be doing something better. But if we're following what they're doing and we're always falling behind, and we're following countries who are essentially the main contributors to the problem that we're currently facing, are we actually coming up with effective solutions for the unique types of problems that we actually have?

[Carlos Larrinaga] What would you would you think those this diversity and those different countries have to contribute to the global perspective?

[Matthew Sorola] There is definitely a Western influence that that permeates the Pacific region and I would say I had most experience with environmental accounting while I was doing my PhD in New Zealand, but there's this feeling that we can't, there's this feeling inside of New Zealand, in this case, that they can't really lead the conversation. And it's a very strange situation because they keep looking, oh what's the US doing, what is Europe doing to, to kind of push forward the conversation around environmental accounting?

You never seem to be, everybody seems to be looking to everybody else for what the answer is, right, and there's this uneasiness inside of New Zealand to lead the conversation. But at the same time I think a lot of people are, I think that they're kind of, back to what Tiffany was saying, there are cultural narratives, on these more local levels, that are much more developed for guiding environment, the direction of environmental accounting, than I think people around the Pacific kind of give themselves credit for.

[Glenn Finau] Definitely the Pacific is extremely diverse, especially talking about the small island developing states countries like Papua New Guinea, for instance, have about 300 different types of language.

So, despite our diversity culturally the way we our relationships with the environment, our relationship with the land culturally is actually very similar. And you know just thinking about something that I listened to a few days ago was saying something that the Western tradition, which is based on Judaeo-Christian Christianity, is that you know interacting with nature is somewhat seen as something that's not right, like a snake talking to you that's not right, but in the Pacific, well in terms of our mythologies and our cosmologies talking in, with nature with animals in fact the snake is actually revered in our culture that's, that's, that's something that's quite different to the Western tradition, and so it's interesting to think about how can we then sort of try and leverage this unique cultural aspects about relationship, and how can it be applied in a global context, but I think that also the issue is that we've discussed it before with Matt is with this.

There's such a strong colonial influence in the Pacific especially when I talk about religion for instance, so you know the issue is how then do we decolonise the knowledge that's been created in order to actually bring up the the lived experiences diverse experiences of indigenous people and they realise unique relationships with the environment and land.

[Mercy Denedo] For us what we did was to look at the types of research that has been conducted on Africa and then to identify future trend or future gaps in that research that and potential researchers can explore and when you look at the African context we all know that Africa and Africa has suffered enormous environmental degradation as a result of the activities of multinational cooperation as a result of the weak governance system in Africa we have we have a lot of human rights violations and the human rights violation you have advocacy NGOs, who are trying to concentrate local community people to create awareness about their fundamental human rights, and how they can hold multinational companies accountable for the violation going on in Africa.

And in order to do that they they've created this platform of this network of engagement that has allowed them to take court cases out of their local context through international and international court to seek justice. So, when you look at the what we did in that chapter what we did was to capture the issues within Africa, and outside, it relates to the natural resources, how the multinational cooperation have been represented within the accounting literature, and how the public sector have not been represented, which is another gap we said that we feel people would need to explore and its implications for the global context.

So we try to link it up with the SDGs and identify future research that people can explore as it relates to the SDGs. For instance we looked at the issue of loss of biodiversity we looked at the issue of extinction which is something that within Africa, when you look at the literature, although people have written about South Africa, or in other countries like Kenya, people have not really talked about the level of loss about diversity and extinction going on within that context.

So we feel people need to look into it we people also need to look at the issue of climate change, like in in Kenya in Mozambique, they are facing flooding on a daily basis last year 2008, 2009, they had this local swamp and local storm, sorry local storm that destroyed their means of livelihood and within the accounting literature people have not really looked at it and the implications for development within that context.

So those are the kind of issues that we captured in this literature also we also talked about the issue of deforestation which is a constant problem in Africa and within the accounting literature it has global implications. We need to start addressing the issue of and deforestation also we talked about the issue of child labour, modern slavery emerging from mining like when you go to the Democratic Republic of Congo where you have children being used to mine mine cobalt.
These are issues that as not just accountability implications, it has regulatory implications and in developed countries we have legislation, we have modern slavery act and so on, around child labour, the use of child labour, and its implications for multinational cooperation, and the local context.

But within Africa, these issues have not been captured and we feel there's a need for us for voices to represent those marginalised voices within Africa.

[Osamuyimen Egbon] Just to add to what Mercy has said, I think our chapter actually trying to address some core issues happening in Africa which have not been explored, they are exploited in the mainstream literature and other imagining social environmental accounts in the literature like policy, and Mercy talked about the issue of poor regulation the issue of flooding, deforestation, desertification, taking high toll on Africa because one thing when we look at the literature on Africa the first thing that comes to mind is environmental pollution.

Okay, so Africa is recognised as the hot spot of environmental pollution, and somehow the literature tends to focus just on the mining sector the extractive industry. Apart from the extractive industries there are other areas of, other issues environmental issues like water and flooding, like Mercy said, and so on. They are all there, but emphasis has not been on them, and they have consequences for the sustainable development goals, if they are to be achieved.

And also the issue of foreign direct investment, because the government is interested in economic growth, lifting people out of poverty and all the rest. So, because of that they tend to enter very relaxed regulation with the corporations giving them certain incentives that are detrimental to the environment.

[Carlos Larrinaga] Do you think that there is something in particular that can contribute to the global perspective, if we take the the African perspective as a starting point?

[Mercy Denedo] When you look at the regulatory framework for environmental regulatory framework realise that even when you talk about the guiding principles and you talk about all the major environmental regulatory framework, they are designed in the West.

They are designed by practitioners who are, who are in the West and you realise that there's this absence of local voices when it comes to the introduction of environmental regulation, the adoption or the implementation of environmental regulation, you have this system of imposing framework on people with diverse culture, diverse ways of doing things.

So I think if Africans, like Egbon said, initially Africans, we start looking at these core issues that affect us as Africans that have global implications, then we can contribute to this global discourse around the introduction. That revolves around the introduction of effective environmental framework so you have the issue of diversity of voices not just voices at the West, or you have voices emerging from the local context that has local implications and if those voices are captured in the development of human rights framework, environmental framework then we, we should believe that those, those frameworks can be implemented at the local level effectively, so is the issue of absence of local voices.

And in addressing climate change we need to understand how it affects the local people. When you're talking about child labour, modern slavery you need to understand how it's affected the local context, so you can't just design modern slavery acts in the west and as expect multinational cooperation and their subsidiaries to implement them. You need to understand how these activities are perpetrated at the local context before those framework can be implemented.

So, understanding what goes on at the local level will be very important at the global level.

[Carlos Larrinaga] Do you know that in the handbook in part four we have chapters also for North America for Europe but we decided to to have this conversation with other regions because we think that North America and Europe are over represented in theliterature and the conversations.

So but this leads me to the to another question is do you think that or,, or or which is the value of bringing together in the handbook those different geographical perspectives of accounts for for the environment of environmental accounting?

[Mercy Denedo] I think for me when I looked at the other chapters I realised that the issues in Asia in, in North America and the other region, we have like similar issues going on in that region, but what I realise is by bringing those chapters together in this book it creates a platform for people to have a conversation and to understand how similar the issues are and if we have to introduce any strategy to implement those issues we can come together and have a dialogue around, around them.

So, with what we have in this chapter, you understand the challenges faced by different issues in different regions and in address identifying the challenges then you can have like a broader conversation around those challenges. So, I think that is one thing that I observed as a result of being working on this on this on these chapters, sorry.

[Osamuyimen Egbon] Added to what Mercy has said, I think looking at these global and local perspectives is very important because, like Africa for example where you have a lot of mineral resources, which certainly, mining and exploitation will have environmental consequences. Asia may not be like that in Europe and the rest of the. They may not have all those kind of issues and there may be some issues like Mercy said, that maybe are the same across the board.

But the way they are are reflected in our understanding they are quite different, so we need to understand how these different environmental issues are understood perceived and engaged with at these different levels, different contexts. So that will help us to know this is how the conversation is going on here, this is how it is going on there, have the things that we can pick and use synergy around.

But if we are just walking in isolation, we may be losing out because there is no knowledge that isa complete knowledge we only know in part so if we bring these pockets of conversations going on across the different perspectives it will really help to maintain a global focus because everything will be discussed now is about the global how to make things, how to reach a global solution.

Reaching global solution cannot be achieved without looking at the pockets of context around around the world. So I think this chapter in a way has promoted the agenda, we should also help, most importantly major scholars, people who are just coming into the discipline to see what conversation is going on and how they can be part of that conversation.

[Carlos Larrinaga] So I was thinking about this idea of connection and I see for example a lot of relationship between the perspectives that are emerging in Africa in Latin America also in in the Pacific region about coloniality.

[Matthew Sorola] There are local cultural perspectives on the relationship with the environment where, you know these market ideologies are not, these are enforced ideologies, right, and if we look to local more local perspectives in the region where environmental accounting is being applied a lot of times these non-Western notions don't have the same kinds of problems dealing with, how do, you know, businesses interact with society. When you're in there, they're problems that are imposed when you start forcing a market ideology inside of it.

So in in drawing these connections between perspectives, I think that there is a need to to recognise that there a resolutions that are that are already there, and there are approaches that are already there, but we need to start listening to them and we need to actually meaningfully engage with them not just add, you know, oh this is a cute way that this local community deals with making decisions and tacking it on to the appendix of some report.
But actually fundamentally changing the way that we approach the environment and and recognising that these solutions have been there and not just trying to force a market ideology as the solution. To not just force the market ideology and looking for 'win-win' solutions all the time.

[Mercy Denedo] I think you can't. I will say you can't address a problem without understanding the root cause of the problem and how it affects people. So you can't introduce like international financial reporting council. So they're trying to introduce this and climate change and standard and I remember the one of our inputs to that consultation paper.

We are, we claim that you can't identify or resolve a problem without understanding how it affects the local people, how it affects people in developing countries and what this handbook has done is to identify those issues that we need to pay attention to.

Even if you are working, if you are a practitioner, you are you are an academic, you are a potential researcher. It has created this platform for people to understand that to address a problem at a global level you need to understand how it affects the local context, and I think that is what this handbook will continue to do because we have potential PhDs to potential academic who are interested in conduct, is conducting research in all this other region.

What they can then do is to look at this and understand the issues that we have discussed in this handbook, and then drive that conversation around these issues.

[Osamuyimen Egbon] Yeah, and just add the a little to what they have said I think Matt talked about the the market based approach to handling some of these environmental crisis. I think of course that runs through the different chapters in this particular path the issue of using market based approach.

Well if you look at like a Tiffany, in her chapter was very precise in saying the drivers of environmental accounting reporting, in Asia, is the investors a pressure stock exchange influence and regulations and if you look at all these things they are all market driven, they are market based, so what about the other stakeholders their voices, and again it's unfortunate also that environmental accounting researchers are doing the same line.

So when we are looking at this report, many tend to look at it from this market lens rather than looking at all the voices, how other perspectives look at this.

[Carlos Larrinaga] In network analysis, you know, when there is, I mean what we are doing now is Africa is speaking to Europe, Latin America is speaking to Europe, the Pacific region is speaking to Europe. So, Europe is in a central point and has a lot of power but if we are speaking to each other we are making in network, in network analysis terms, we are making the, the network denser, and then you know Europe will be less powerful.

I mean Europe, considering the Western world, would be less powerful if we make different connections, do you see resistance, which are the sources of resistance in the different regions to engage in this kind of dialogues focusing on environmental accounting.

[Osamuyimen Egbon] I think in a way when one of the important elements about change is the issue of, it is going to be tense when you are trying to change the status quo, I don't really foresee a resistance coming from this so-called peripheral regions maybe Africa, the Pacific, South America, Asia, Middle East but the the major, a point of concern will be America, North America, and and Europe, how would they perceive the dialogue because when you are changing the status quo, changing the privilege ideology, it's really going to face some level of resistance.

But we have to keep pushing otherwise it will not, we know we will not get there because this is a global problem, it's not an American problem, it's not a European problem, it's not an African problem is a global problem, and of course global dialogue has to be there.

[Carlos Larrinaga] What about the the research programmes for the future, what about the authors, the, you know, not just being the object of research. I mean Africa, Asia, the Pacific region, Latin America, has tended to be the object of research.

But to make this progress, to make decoloniality happen, we need to bring those regions to the status of, subject of research, not the the object of research. So what about research programmes by particularly by local authors in the future what would you what would you be your your take on this?

[Glenn Finau] We lack the capacity in the Pacific, and that the universities in the Pacific are sort of moving in the wrong direction and that they're not promoting the type of research programmes that would help empower indigenous people and would help to translate local knowledge into, for example, solutions that could be applied in policy in academia.

If we. For me personally I feel that the current academics, in my particular region, we definitely need to work more closely together to collaborate work with other Indigenous academics around the world to try and help bring up these voices. Because I feel that if you want to tell our stories we need to look at what the critical Indigenous theorists, feminist geographers, etc. are doing and to do that type of research, you know there needs to be a lot of investment in the humanities and this you know those types of disciplines which really draw on these issues.

And what we're seeing in my own country of Fiji is that we're moving, like we're moving away from that, we're trying to prioritise more on the the disciplines that we think will be able to generate economic growth, rather than that can conserve or preserve our knowledge.

So I'm, I want to be optimistic but doesn't look so good right now. So I'm just like, I think a lot of initiatives should be taken by us as academics.

[Mercy Denedo] Yeah, and let me add to that Carlos, he says something about criticising the West, which I feel I need like this I disagree with a bit. I think what we've done in this handbook is not to criticise the West, but to encourage diversity of voices and in encouraging diversity of voices we are looking at what has been conducted on as it relates to the West.

And what is missing that we need to understand in the global South. So we are not using these chapters to criticise the West. Because if you say you are criticising the West, that will create tension, and people will not want to listen to what you are saying. But I think what we are trying to do is to ensure inclusion and diversity of voices as regards to environmental accounting research.

So, we are not using these chapters to say what the people are doing in the West is bad, but we are trying to encourage dialogue around these environmental issues. So, in relation to your second question, I think when you look at the African context we, Africa itself, we lack the research capacity to carry out research on environmental issues.

So, we lack the funding capacity, the technology is not there, the resources is not there, and you realise that most advocacy NGOs, they are the ones carrying out this research probably because they can source their funding from the West to carry out this research, this environmental related research, they've been doing the research on climate change beneficial ownership scheme that looks at the ownership structure of mining, of oil companies and how the structure has been captured by a few people at the expense of the whole community.

So, I think in building synergy we need to understand that as academic we can't work alone we need to collaborate with all these NGOs who have the resources one who knows the space and in knowing the space they've created that network for them to force to engage at the global level.

So, we need to create that opportunity for ourselves to engage with the NGOs who have been advocates within this space for years and years and they've, they've seen impacts from their engagement at the global level.

[Osamuyimen Egbon] And also to learn the voice for this conversation, importantly our research in social parameter accounting should move in a direction that is a policy driven because it starts where things happen to get things changed if we cannot influence policy we can talk thousands and thousands of years, nothing will happen.

So we shouldn't shy away from our policy orientation research, and this may be very costly because now investors are focusing so much on impact, what impact is our research, research having so if we are looking at the part, the direction of impact so we have to be moving towards how we can influence policies with our research and in doing so, that's how we get this change, like Mercy was talking about, engaging with NGOs, engaging with practitioners on another, to move the research agenda forward and we know of course it may be very costly to engage in such research because of access to data, unlike market based research which I squite easy in terms of having access to data the cost implication of that where you can just si tin the comfort of your room and assess your data.

But this one most importantly we have to go to the feet of one another and understand what is going on. Ethnographic studies. Action-based research. So once we are able to engage in all these things, because we need to use evidence to prove to policymakers that this is the evidence here this is what we, what can be achieved if this line of decision, action, is taken and to, to come by that.

It comes with a lot of course and effort and commitment and which we can also do by building synergies among ourselves from different parts of the globe.

[Carlos Larrinaga] Thank you very much for, for this conversation. We were thinking about asking you for a closing statements about chapter environmental accounting considering your region or whatever you, you think is important for environmental accounting.

[Glenn Finau] I just hope that we from the Pacific will be able to tell our own stories about environmental accounting and that you know these stories will help empower us to address this very existential threat that we're facing right now which is climate change. Thank you.

[Tiffany Leung] So, for my chapter we are not working on the advancement of capitalism to focus on the growth profit and efficiency particularly the shareholders value. So rather we work on the active concern for the silent stakeholder, like the natural environment. So let us reflect more on the relationship with the humanity and the nature and the reality and the complexity of the social elemental relationship.

So, we have already created account of the humanity's exploitation of the nature. So, we hope we can continue to develop the capacity to change and also the transformative action to address the social elemental accounting. So, I would say that I hope we could be the 'change agent' for their sustainability and their environmental accounting. And so we will be a part of the scholarly community and player an active role to promote these transform, transformative changes.

So in my language, so, I hope that, ok, I'll say in Chinese okay.

[Tiffany speaks in Mandarin]

Thank you.

[Mercy Denedo] Based on what we've looked at, and we've looked at the issues in Africa and I hope that as academics, as practitioners, we can take a look at the issues highlighted in this chapter and then create a policy framework around them in order to drive change. So, we have to be involved as individuals, as academics, as practitioners, we need to take our research out of the classroom and engage with policy makers, and encourage future generations of environmental accounting researchers.

So, take a look at what we've highlighted and adopt a network ethnographic or practice-oriented approach to address these issues highlighted in the chapter. So we hope that change will emerge from what we've highlighted, and I'm looking forward to a better Africa as a result of this chapter.

[Osamuyimen Egbon] Thank you very much and to add to that I think what I would like to encourage future researchers in Africa, who are interested in social environmental accounting, is to follow their passion, because passion is very important that commit, because passion that will drive our commitment in following through what we wanted to look at and also to encourage our western scholars to also support these emerging scholars, the ones interested in social environmental accounting to allow them to pursue their goal from their different perspective rather than trying to compose them into a specific notions of thinking, way of thinking, so I think that is what will move the conversation forward because everyone has something to say so they have something to say, we can give them the opportunity to express themselves as possibly as they can. Thank you.

[Matthew Sorola] The closing comments that I wanted to make really just build on what are, what everybody's already been saying here, I thought it would be good just to reflect back on a comment that we made at the end of the chapter about being 'led from below with support from above' and that kind of gets back to Mercy was talking about not just criticising, you know, developed Western approaches to environmental accounting but getting support, like Egbon was saying, getting support to, to, to enrich those voices and build that kind of solidarity that we've been talking a lot about today so that we can start to chart a new path towards the development of environmental accounting.

[Carlos Larrinaga speaks in Spanish]

[Carlos Larrinaga] So thank, you thank you for participating in this conversation. I really enjoyed so much the, the discussion, and I, you know, take two different questions that we have been discussing the, the, this idea of diversity context, the importance of diversity, the importance of context but also the importance of connection, connection among the different regions of the global South and connection also with the, the Western world and I hope that maybe who knows a research project crossing borders between different regions in the global South with will emerge in environmental accounting from this handbook, so thank you very much.