This week I have been in Helsinki, Finland, at the big European Accounting Association (EAA) conference, which held several symposiums about sustainability in accounting. Aalto University provided us with the opportunity to discuss the state of the art in regard to sustainability reporting, sustainability standards and diversity in academia. This is a giant leap for the field that has been slow to move towards an emphasis on the sustainability perspective in accounting. I was at the conference to present our first paper in a project about diversity in audit teams. It was great to see so many researchers engaged in such matters and providing space to create new opportunities.
I also had the pleasure of taking part in a Hack-the-future Sustainable Education Futures workshop, organised by Nicholas McGuigan, Professor in accounting and Director of Equity, Diversity & Social Inclusion at Monash Business School. The event included many inspiring Professors and PhD students from around the world that seek to advance their accounting education for sustainability. The workshop included practical tips about activities that can be used to include everyone in a collaborative experience to address present past and future sustainability challenges.
After a short introduction, the first activity helped to form team awareness and a sense that we are not alone. We were first asked to write down something that we find troublesome, worrying or a big challenge in regard to the sustainability of our present experiences. We then stood up to walk around the room, introducing ourselves and passing our paper to each person we meet (this way the paper/challenges get shuffled around anonymously). We were then asked to stop, sit down and some were asked to read the challenge out loud. The paper/challenge was then thrown in a bin, to highlight that we will use a positive mindset to overcome these challenges. This activity could be used, for example, with first year students when we introduce the sustainability perspective and ask what the concept means to them.
The second activity was a fun way to organise small collaborative teams. We were asked to stand in a geographical line depending on which institution we are affiliated. It was interesting to see how people understood their location to others (myself being the most north!). We formed mixed groups so that we could experience the diverse perspectives that these regional differences can bring. This is definitely a technique I will try for my students.
The third activity started the futuring process. We were asked to reflect on how we feel about the education we provide now as if we were in 2038, 15 years from now. We were then asked to describe how it is in the future, what it is like and how we feel about the past. I hoped for the future that the inspiration from events such as the workshops, the people I have met on this project’s journey and the support that we have provided will create action for sustainability in education. I am so grateful for meeting such wonderfully engaged people as we continue to meet people working with these challenges. Thank you all, so very much. Your positive mindsets continue to inspire me every day.
The fourth activity required us to reflect on the structural and behavioural challenges that we identify in our education today. We then chose one structural challenge and one behavioural challenge that we wanted to reflect a little deeper on, using their binary opposites (for example, formal vs. informal systems/open to change vs. closed to change). These reflections were then placed in a four quadrant, where we described a future scenario that would be typical of these four situations (Formal-open/formal-closed/informal-open/informal-closed).
The fifth activity was to plan a lesson that we could practically apply to one of the scenarios. We chose the most positive future scenario quadrant, informal-open where we described a student-led, designed and teacher facilitated module where the whole student approach can be applied. I was inspired by the work we have been doing with the #HEDS group in Sweden and was able to apply the ideas I gained from the group with international colleagues in the field I teach (accounting). It was great to put the ideas into action and to share the futuring process with others. Thank you to Michelle Rodrigue, Professor of Sustainability Accounting at Université Laval, Joao Victor Joaquim Santos, PhD Student at ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Charles Cho, Professor of Sustainability Accounting and Erivan K. Haub Chair in Business & Sustainability at Schulich School of Business (and was part of a team that created the diversity symposium; well done to you all!) and all that took part in the education for sustainability Hack-the-Future workshop.
In the discussion forum this week, we ask: What collaborative space is provided for you and your colleagues in the discipline you teach to help create ideas to advance your education for sustainability? What can you do to provide such a space? What support do you need?
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