I recently found myself saying that accounting is ‘sexy’. In March, my alma mater, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, kindly invited me to join a seminar on sustainable finance. Prompted by a fellow speaker’s comments on the importance of measuring and disclosing environmental and social data, I agreed that the accounting profession may well enjoy a renaissance. It will play a centre-stage role in solving the sustainability problem. Chiara Mio, a Ca’ Foscari academic and board member of the International Federation of Accountants, was encouraging students to consider the field.
Venice is the right place to discuss accounting. The first manuscript to describe the double-entry bookkeeping method, by friar Luca Pacioli in 1494, relied on the already established use of the practice by Venetian merchants in the 1300s. And this, indeed, is the right time to place greater focus on new types of reporting and disclosure.
