Educating Accountants for a Sustainable Future

Recent years have seen a significant shift in demand for relevant sustainability-related disclosure, reporting, and assurance and the accountancy profession is working to prepare current and future professionals to meet these stakeholder demands. The literature review identifies the new and existing competencies required of professional accountants to provide these services; educational strategies to develop them; and the challenges the accountancy education community will face. The review also highlights key themes in current sustainability-related education, learning and development to provide insights on how the global accountancy profession can meet stakeholder demands for relevant and reliable sustainability reporting.

The literature review informed IFAC’s decision to make sustainability-related revisions to the International Education Standards and will contribute to the forthcoming proposed revisions, expected in Q2 2024.

For additional insights from the literature review, please watch IFAC's webinar with the author, available in Arabic, English and Spanish.