Strategies and Resources for Integrating Sustainability in the Introductory Accounting Courses

• In Event: Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum I

Abstract

Sustainability, CSR (corporate social responsibility), ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and “green” have become prevalent and somewhat interchangeable buzzwords in the business and popular press in the last several years. Underlying this trending wave of vocabulary is a serious and deliberate movement by many businesses, educational institutions, and organizations to generate value for their broader set of stakeholders. By embracing, measuring and transparently reporting on sustainability performance, businesses are better able to manage internal change and inform their stakeholders of the company’s progress towards generating value for a broad base of constituents, including, but not limited to shareholders. Despite the growing importance of sustainability in business, few resources have been published to aid educators in integrating sustainability into the accounting curriculum, particularly at the introductory level. Thus, accounting educators who wish to do so must start from scratch developing tools and methodology for enhancing their students’ awareness of sustainability and its connection to accounting. The purpose of this paper is to provide accounting educators with strategies and tools to incorporate sustainability in the introductory accounting course, not as an isolated topic, but as an integral theme woven throughout the coverage of traditional accounting course topics. Readers are provided free access to an online website (https://sites.google.com/a/case.edu/tools-for-integrating-sustainability-in-an-introductory-accounting-class/home) featuring short PowerPoint presentations, links to company videos, short articles, activities, websites, and discussion questions that can be easily incorporated in an introductory level course without sacrificing standard course topics. The results of student feedback suggests that these resources, which focus on real-life company examples and critical thinking, helped students develop a sustainability mindset and connect sustainability to the role accounting serves in measuring, analyzing and reporting business activities

Authors

• Karen W Braun, Case Western Reserve University

• Wendy Tietz, Kent State University