“The role of accounting in sustainable development”

Ideology of Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals influence the transformation of business processes in the companies. Professional accoun-tants are important part of this transformation. In this paper the role of accounting in Sustainable Development Goals achievement is discussed. Different approaches to structuring the role of professional accountants in Sustainable Development are investigated. Among them are types of roles that perform accountants, their professional functions, skills and competencies in the corporate environment. As the result a holistic vision of the role of accounting in sustainable development in the new economic conditions is provided.


INTRODUCTION
United Nation's (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) nowadays are generally recognized guidelines of the Global Development until 2030.They were adopted at the UN summit in New York in 2015.There are 17 goals which are specified in 169 varied indicators.SDGs call governments, business and public from all the countries to intensify efforts to resist climate changes, poverty, inequality, environmental pollution and other challenges of our time.
Unlike the Millennium Development Goals the SDGs are aimed for more active involvement of the business community, its innovation and investment potential to overcome these challenges by including them into business priorities.In particular, achievement of the SDGs requires the formation of a pool of resources, comparable with 1.5 -4% of global GDP.It emphasizes the need to attract business to government initiatives on sustainable development.
Herewith, business leaders consider the SDGs as new opportunities for the development of their activities: 89% of CEO noticed that commitments to sustainable development have a real impact on their industry (United Nations, 2016) and 71% of businesses already plan to take the SDGs into account in their activity (PwC, 2015).17 SDGs and 169 indicators form a continuous basis for companies to create, enhance, inform and report on their strategies, objectives and LLC "СPС "Business Perspectives" Hryhorii Skovoroda lane, 10, Sumy, 40022, Ukraine www.businessperspectives.orgThis is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International license, which permits re-use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the materials aren't used for commercial purposes and the original work is properly cited.
activities.This will improve communication with key stakeholders, increase their loyalty and transparency of the business environment and quality management as a framework for corporate sustainability in terms of growth of legal, reputational risk, volatility of financial markets and access to finance (UN Resolution, 2015).
The importance of high-quality corporate reporting in ensuring financial stability and sustainable development in general and in particular the achievement of the SDGs was officially recognized during 32-nd session of UNCTAD's Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR).
Accountants are highly involved in this process.They measure, evaluate and disclosure the progress in SDGs achieving by the company.Accountants act as guides and translators of the Triple Bottom Line ideas using the language of corporate sustainability.Bakker (2012) from the World Business Forum for Sustainable Development notes that "accountants are going to save the world".Accountants minimize information asymmetry and assess investment risks, they create integrated reporting and integrated audit, provide and test standards of sustainability accounting, reporting and auditing within the new business model.With specific professional skills and involvement in governance, risk management, business analysis, decision support, due diligence, anticorruption activities and ensure corporate transparency, professional accountants today are reassessing their roles because of the SDGs and corporate sustainability.
Importance of accounting activates in SDGs achievement is recognized by professional international organizations.Among them are International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting Council (ISAR), Fauna & Flora International, the World Business Forum on Sustainable Development, KPMG, PwC and others.
The aim of this paper is to define the role of accounting in SDGs achievement and to promote the general idea of sustainable development.To do this authors integrate different approaches to structuring the role of professional accountants in Sustainable Development.Among them are types of roles that perform accountants, their professional functions, skills and competencies in the corporate environment.As the result a holistic vision of the role of accounting in sustainable development in the new economic conditions is provided.Another contribution of this paper is a panoramic vision of the accounting profession transformation according to corporate sustainable development.Also further development of information and analytical support of sustainable development is required.To do this professional competence of accountants will be discussed.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 briefly reviews the academic literature about the role of accounting in the sustainable development.Section 3 contains analysis of existing approaches to differentiation of these roles.Section 3 presents concluding remarks.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The role of accountants in sustainable development and SDGs are actively discussed in academic literature.Gray (2010), Gray and Bebbington (2000) points to the need for a critical approach to understanding of the role of accounting and business in the context of the sustainable development.Lovell and MacKenzie (2011) analyze the role of professional accountant organizations in management of the new carbon economy and climate changes.Ngwakwe (2012) provides a critical review of sustainable development initiatives in the accounting profession and proves the need for more pragmatic approach to achieve accounting impact on sustainable development.
Milne and Gray (2013) offer a paradoxical idea that under isolation 'triple bottom line' concept and business participation in sustainable development accounting initiatives could lead to greater levels of un-sustainability.Khan and Gray (2016) provide an overview of the accounting, educational and business practices in the context of sustainable development based on the theory of autopoiesis as a metaphorical lens.Gray and Collison (2002) explore the role of accountants and their education in the UK in the sustainable development context.
Ng, Leung and Lo (2016) prove the importance of attraction of sustainability competence for the new generations of accountants.
According to ACCA research (poll of over 4,500 ACCA students from 126 countries) 81% of respondents see the direct link between business and the depletion of natural resources (ACCA, 2014).
However, it should be mentioned that academic literature about the role of accountants in achieving sustainable development in general are critical and mostly discuses challenges and issues facing the accounting in the process of moving towards sustainable development.We believe these searches should be supplemented with research materials prepared by professional accounting organizations and developers of accounting and reporting standards, including IFAC, ACCA etc.The study of these organizations, as opposed to academic papers, creates a holistic vision of the role of the accounting profession in achieving SDGs in different sections.In case roles of Professional Accountants in SR are as follows:

APPROACHES TO DETERMINING ACCOUNTANCY CONTRIBUTION TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• creators of value -professional accountants play the leading role in the development and implementation of strategies, policies, plans, structure and activities of the management and set a course to create sustainable development values; • providers of value-professional accountants use information and provide management with high-quality reporting horizons which is the basis of the sustainable development strategy; • keepers of the value -professional accountants protect natural, social, industrial and financial capital of the company; • reporters of values -professional accountants ensure high-quality reporting for stakeholders.This vision of professional accountant's functional roles and their positions clearly correlates with gradations of corporate sustainable development.At the strategic level accountants exercise their authority as creators of values, at the operating level they act providers of sustainable development values and at the reporting level they act as keepers and reporters.
SR is the point of contact between SDGs and corporate sustainability.IFAC (2013) defined principles of reporting process.Among them are: obligations to prepare high-quality reporting, delineation of roles and responsibilities, planning and controlling the reporting process, involving stakeholders, determining the content of reporting standards for the preparation of financial and non-financial information, formalization of reporting process, analysis, interpretation, verification (audit) reporting indicators, evaluation and improvement of the reporting process.

Types of accountants profession groups& sustainable development
Accounting community can be divided into 5 groups: developers of standards, professional bodies, professional firms, qualified accountants and members of the academic community.ACCA, FFI and KPMG (2015) focus on changes in the traditional roles of these groups in the context of sustainable development (  Using the following corporate sustainable development gradation: strategic, operational and reporting, we determine typical roles and areas of professional accountant's responsibility in decision-making support.
Functional roles of professional accountants and their positions clearly correlate with gradations of corporate sustainable development.At the strategic level accountants exercise their authority as creators of values, at the operating level they act as providers of sustainable development values and at the reporting level they act as keepers and reporters.Thus the role of professional accountants in sustainable development needs to be revised according to new economic conditions.
At the same time, mechanisms of professional competence for accountants require further investigation, because different groups of accountants are responsible for the high-quality and reliable sustainable reporting which is the basis of information and analytical support of sustainable development.
Mapping the SDG's Goals interconnection in the light of accountancy contribution 2.1.Relevant SDG aspect & accountancy contribution According to IFAC (2016) 8 from 17 SDGs and their 17 targets have direct relation to the accounting.Accountants can influence their achievement (see Table 1) and at the same time transforming accounting according to the new challenges from corporate sustainable development.The most relevant goals for the accountants are the following: 12.6, 8.3, 17.16 and 17.18.Goal 12 and its target 12.6 act as a basis for the corporate sustainable development.They related to incorporation of the sustainable development criterions into the mission, strategy, tactical decisions and operating policies of business.As the result demand for more transparent and quality sustainability reporting (SR) is growing.Multi-stakeholder approach is formed within Goal 17.16.According to this goal improved data collection, monitoring and accountability are key elements of the information and analytical support of sustainable development.Тable 1. -strategic, operational and reporting (Table.2).However, it should be noted that to create longterm value of the company it is necessary to integrate all types of capital requires, as well as in-

Table 2 .
Role, responsibilities and decision direction on corporate sustainability perspective

Table 4 .
Accountancy profession group role in traditional and sustainable businessNowadays there are 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 indicators that act as global guidelines for sustainable development.They help corporate sector in restructuring their business processes according to the challenges of our time.Integration of SDGs and corporate sustainable development strategies needs reformatting of existing information and analytical provision of decision making process on the basis of social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.In this context, professional accountants are directly related to the promotion of sustainable development initiatives at the corporate level.Using materials of professional organizations authors synthesize different approaches to structuring the role of professional accountants, providing a holistic vision of the accounting profession in the new economy Authors investigate the contribution of professional accountants in achieving SDGs, the most relevant among them are goals 12.6, 08.03,17.16and 17.18.