Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey mate, hey Andrew.

Speaker 2: 0:05

What do wind turbines talk about?

Speaker 1: 0:10

I don't know. What do wind turbines talk about? Nothing special.

Speaker 2: 0:15

They just shoot the breeze. It's very good, you like that.

Speaker 1: 0:17

That is very good. That's very good. I like that joke.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Nice Now. Friends, families, listeners, accounting friends you might have noticed that either Ali's voice is exceptionally lower on this occasion or we've got an absolute total random that's joined us in. You are correct. This is not Ali, this is Joel. We're going to go to our theme tunes, david's going to play the songs and I'm going to introduce Joel after the music comes back. All right, mates. So yes, we have a totally different alley on here. This is Joel Hanna. Now, for those of you in the accounting industry, you might be like hey, I know the name, joel Hanna. I've seen him around in various different shades of blue and accounting technology. Joel and I have been mates for as long as I can remember. We've done crazy toothbrush projects together, we've played in bands together and probably drunk too many whiskeys together. Joel, what you do now is something that you can explain far greater than I, but maybe give us a little bit of backstory and a bit of current story. Who the heck are you and what are you about? What do you do?

Speaker 1: 1:32

Well, how long do you have, andrew? Yeah, not long.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Okay, well, the short version of the story is Great, that was excellent. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. It's been great to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Yes, it is great to be joining you and, yes, we have known each other forever. So my day job right now is I'm a customer success manager at a company called Sustain Life, and we have an ESG data platform that allows businesses of all sizes and shapes to measure and understand their ESG or sustainability footprint. You know uppercase E for environmental, that's capturing carbon. Not capturing carbon, rather, it's uh, taking data from across your business and calculating an emissions profile for your organization. We then help you to measure and manage your social and governance metrics as well. So you have a single pane of glass, a single place to really understand you know, for one of the better terms, sustainability footprint of your organization.

Speaker 1: 2:24

In a previous life, I was a projects lead in the sustainability team at Xero everyone's favorite accounting platform, right on when we were, or still is, climate active certified, so carbon neutral. We had a whole bunch of climate disclosures that we were responsible for in our team, as well as a whole bunch of other social governance things too. So, um, and then before that, uh, you know, all over the, the shop at zero. Uh, I worked in custom success in education, in products. Uh, at one stage I had the keys to the, the twitter handle, which is terrifying, oh, did you really, I think I actually set it up to be fair back in the day I.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Oh, mate. There's many we could, obviously, because this is an accounting podcast. We could talk a lot about that, but I feel like that's not what we should be talking about today.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Far better and more interesting things.

Speaker 2: 3:12

We'll turn off, we'll stop recording and later we'll talk about that. But the reason I've got Joel on the podcast today and the reason that Ali is remotely not here, she's not here, not even remotely.

Speaker 2: 3:22

She's not in today. We really, ali and I, really want to talk about we're talking about the future freaks us out. We're talking about the accounting industry. We're talking 10, 15, 20 years from now, and one thing that we know is it becoming louder and louder and louder in our current day lives, and we are expecting it to be even bigger in the future is the idea of sustainability. Future is the idea of sustainability, um, and I guess the broader concepts that impact that. So you know things, um, that are about doing the right thing, uh, impacting environment, people, uh and animals and all this kind of stuff, right, and so we want to talk about the future of sustainability.

Speaker 2: 3:56

It's impacting the accounting industry and I figured who else, who else, to get on to talk about that, and so normally ali and I would have banter all right but because ali and I have little to no knowledge on this, I am entrusting you to bring the good vibes, the knowledge and then and everything to our listeners and if this goes bad, it's on you.

Speaker 1: 4:13

Okay, that's fair. I will do my very best. Sustainable ali impression, who I'm sad that ali's not here. She's the main reason I listen to this show to be fair, that's fair um yeah, well, great mate, let's uh, let's dive on in, let's do it. So how can I help?

Speaker 2: 4:30

so I guess what we like to kind of start and think about, we're talking about the future, right, and so, uh, first step on this season was like, the future freaks me out, like there's just so much going on, so much happening, and this 20 years time, like, what is it going to look like? And like, do I just need to dig a hole there and myself cover it over and just forget about it? And so, um, maybe we'll like, let's go with, like, what do you, what do you see the future looking like? So in your space, in sustainability, impact, environment, all this kind of uh space, and, if you can find a way with your very deep knowledge of the accounting industry, spending a lot of time around us, where do you see a correlation between the two? And let's think about that in 20 years' time. What do you think it looks like in 20 years?

Speaker 1: 5:10

20 years. Wow, we'll be old. Okay, great question. So if the current prevailing trends are anything to go by, I think it's very reasonable to suggest that you know, thinking about the business landscape, that businesses of all shapes, sizes and flavours will need to be measuring and disclosing some sort of ESG-related measure, whether that's carbon, it's likely to be carbon.

Speaker 2: 5:37

Sorry, just for the listeners at home. I know as accountants we like three-letter acronyms TLAs. What is ESG? Pardon me, it's.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Environmental is ESG Pardon me, it's Environmental, social and Governance Excellent, it's had many names over the years. The current kind of fashionable term is sustainability. Really, what we're talking about is the way the business operates, right? So you have financial performance and you have non-financial performance, and a really good way to bucket that non-financial performance is environmental, social and governance related performance. Um, and so you know the uh, the idea of taking data from across your business, turning that into some sort of measurable metric and then disclosing that in some way, shape or form. Um, it's a really familiar idea for, you know, for an accounting practitioner, right? And usually what we're dealing with is money in, money out things happen.

Speaker 1: 6:27

In between, some sort of sorcery happens and I get a tax return and then I've got capital gains tax to pay and I've got you know, there's calculations and representations of the business in a financial sense that are really familiar and normal.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Now, if we think forward 20 years, alongside that financial performance of the business and I'm talking businesses of all shapes, sizes and flavours this idea that you would be measuring and disclosing things that are non-financial related, I think, is pretty reasonable to expect. Sometimes it's really helpful to think about where we're at now and what's happened in the past, and that gives us a direction of travel into the future. So in Australia, we've had a reporting requirement called ENGERS for quite some time. It was 2006, I think it was passed into law. I'm all out of breath. You got it, you got it, and then it was made mandatory from 2007. So, basically, if you consume or produce a large volume of energy or electricity in this country, the government wants to know about that, and so businesses that are caught under the ENGIS requirements are usually large resources companies or power producing organizations.

Speaker 2: 7:38

So is this? Like you know, the government's agreed to something with all other nations around the world and they're like great, we've agreed that we're going to do something. We're now going to push that back down the chain to the businesses and the people. Why are we being told that we have to do this other than, what outcome is the government trying to achieve with it?

Speaker 1: 7:54

right, yeah, so that's part of it, right. And so, yes, this is like a top-down requirement that already exists for those large companies from government. But kind of zoom out a little bit. I mean, you don't have to go too far or read too many news feeds or flick through a newspaper. If you've ever seen one of those, it's this paper thing that has news on it. They're hard to find these days. I usually get most of mine from social media Scrawly, scrawl, scrawly.

Speaker 1: 8:19

Scrawlison To see that the planet is changing right and and the planet is telling us something about its current health and what it that used.

Speaker 1: 8:32

The planet is a pretty ethereal, weird out there kind of idea, but the the number of natural disasters, heat stress, floods, fires, etc. That are occurring globally, there's something going on here. So, yes, governments have gotten together and said we need to do something about this changing planet, and we could talk about the IPCC and the other amazing organizations that are out there doing this work. But basically, yes, governments are getting together and saying we need to do something, we need to help get our businesses in our countries to help reduce the worst impacts of climate change, and so that's where you get things like engers and the upcoming. You know that's, that's the past. The thing that's happening currently, uh, is we have the australian sustainability reporting standards that are becoming, you know, they're getting formalized and passed into law and they'll basically be effective from the start of next year. So businesses over half a billion dollars in terms of revenue will need to be reporting, measuring, disclosing their scopes one, two and three carbon emissions.

Speaker 2: 9:34

And that then shrinks down over time, right? So half a billion is like eh, whatever, but like soon that'll be like half, like 50 million.

Speaker 1: 9:42

Yeah Well, so by 2027 basically it's not far away.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Businesses are 50 mil or over someone's going to be listening this podcast in like 2030 and be like, nah, the government actually pushed it back, so it was actually 2032. Like, is that one of those classic ones is like so in 20 years time, do we actually see this stuff actually in action? Or is this going to be a classic, like we hope to, but like it it might. It might like the amount of time it takes for change in this space. I feel like. I feel like like the like our planet is changing way faster than the action we're taking to try and assist that change.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. And again direction of travel. You know the reporting requirements for businesses over half a billion was originally intended to start from 1st of July 2024 but has been pushed back at least six months and six months not too bad yeah, but so what that really?

Speaker 1: 10:32

the other thing that's meant is that the reporting year for that first year has now shifted back a year as well, and that's a global trend. The same thing happened in the US. They had some SEC requirements that basically got diluted and pushed back um. But you know, you kind of, I think, 20 years from now, yes, I think it's fair to say that these things will exist and they'll exist in, you know, in earnest, and there'll be requirements for all sorts of business.

Speaker 2: 10:53

You feel like this will be like an everyday walk of life for, like a business in general, like we're thinking, like a business that's turning over a million bucks, more than likely we'll have elements of reporting and accountability. Do you think that'll be impacted on individuals? Like do you think individuals will be responsible for their social, environmental and like government's kind of footprint?

Speaker 1: 11:11

Yeah, well, good news tends to trickle downhill, right? So, yeah, when you think about even a business that today turns over a million bucks in order to tender to many of our state governments actually in Australia so Victoria, new South Wales, south Australia, I think Queensland soon as well you have to be measuring and reporting your carbon profile, your carbon emissions profile, in order to be able to tender in those public tenders.

Speaker 1: 11:37

And so, even if you're not the half a billion dollar business that's staring down the barrel of this stuff for the start of next year, you might be trying to, or you might exist within the supply chain of one of those businesses and so like we say I said before good news trickles downhill.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Um, you know, if, if I'm a big guy and I need to report my stuff, I'm going to ask the, the people in my supply chain, my value chain, to substantiate, um, you know, to get me there all right, this, this, I mean it's.

Speaker 2: 12:03

It's so intriguing, I think, like the stuff that's coming out now I, I think we'll see a lot more pace with it as as time goes through. So, like stuff that's like, ah, it's 2026 and it's 2030, all of a sudden it'll be 2035, and like the pace of change I'm assuming will continue, because what we'll probably do is we'll either learn that it's working and then try, push and enforce more of it and put more of it on hey, this is working, we should do it, or it's not quite working. We have to dramatically change something faster because of the impact of Totally, and I think it'll be. I feel like right now I'm like ah, you know, like I'm a good person, you know, I ride my bike, work again and I, you know, put things in recycling.

Speaker 1: 12:41

I've got a keep cup and a refillable drink bottle, and surely that's fixed it right.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Right and surely that's good, and I think there's obviously those elements where we do what we can.

Speaker 1: 12:50

But I'm just wondering 20 years time. Only the science agreed.

Speaker 2: 12:53

Like in 20 years time, like I can see that. So I'm going to move into the next stage of our conversation, which is what freaks you out, right? So what? What scares you? And for me, I look at that and I go. Obviously, the things that always get me nervous about the future is who's the people that are making the decisions that we're impacted by? So, um, you know what, if? What if, as a nation, we decide to adopt or not to adopt certain things? Um, and then also, how do we deal with the opposition to those decisions, in terms of where people are saying they don't want to or whatever? And, as I've said a few times in the podcast, just think about every future-orientated movie that you've ever seen, right, post-apocalyptic, and all this like some dominant company that's ruling the world. Yeah, conglomerate co-op.

Speaker 2: 13:36

I could see in 20 years' time. Someone just takes advantage of all this ESG regulation that's coming through and just takes control of it and all of a sudden we're like, oh crap, Now Woolworths is in charge of it. I think we've referenced Woolworths being in charge of everything.

Speaker 1: 13:50

Not a sponsor. No, no, no. If they want to be though email the podcast at andrewaccountingadventurescomau.

Speaker 2: 13:58

But I look at that and I go like, yeah man, how do actually like? What could it look like and how far could like this regulation go, depending on who's there? And it makes me nervous with all that Like. Does that scare you? Are? You like, no, I should be right, don't worry about it, people are smart.

Speaker 1: 14:16

No, it freaks me right out. There's enough science and well individuals that have articulated this far better than I ever can, but if we don't act now, the planet will warm more than 1.5 degrees when compared with pre-industrial average temperatures. Yep, and I guarantee you're going to get some emails from people saying, oh, that science is bullshit. And I'm not sure if you're allowed to swear on your podcast, but I always get in trouble for it.

Speaker 2: 14:46

I mean, a lot of Melburnians were like 1.5 degree extra, that'd be great. It's real bloody cold right now. But on a planet-wide perspective not so great.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Yeah, look, 1.5 degrees. We kind of survive, but there's mass migration, there's starvation and there's civil wars. Two degrees and two and a half degrees and all of those things are compounded like tenfold. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 15:12

And so Is that like, are we talking 20 years time, if, like, shit goes bad?

Speaker 1: 15:16

Yeah, we're talking. You know, you and I both have kids. We're talking in their lifetimes. Yeah, cool, and so that's why we have these targets of 2030 and 2050, right? So, um, uh, you would have heard like the idea of being net zero by 2050 many companies, countries, large organizations have set these targets to be completely net zero, which means no carbon emissions by 2050 but isn't, isn't the way they do.

Speaker 2: 15:40

That is just by simply paying someone else to take off the carbon. So like it's like, oh, we'll emit carbon, but like we're investing in a tree, talking about offsets, yeah, like offsets right.

Speaker 1: 15:49

So like it's like you know, I'm meeting it right so the way those standards work and there's, there's a couple of them, you know for anyone who's a nerd burger like me, go and google the science based targets initiative but basically you know, no more than five to ten percent compared to your baseline year can be made up of carbon offsets. So you can't offset your way to compliance, you can't offset your way out of jail, right?

Speaker 2: 16:13

I punched this person, but I hugged that person, so that means I'm a good person, right?

Speaker 1: 16:16

You can't quite do that Sort of yeah, except now you're going to jail for both of those things, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I think carbon offsets are and we're sort of zigzagging across the board here a little bit but carbon offsets are a really important part of the journey but, they can't be the long-term solution because we need net zero, not like it needs to be.

Speaker 1: 16:39

We need to get down to like no emissions and no new carbon in the atmosphere. And so there's a great book. There's a couple of them called, uh, called how bad are bananas. That's very much worth the reads. This guy, are they bad? Um, bananas are actually pretty good when it comes to carbon. But basically it kind of tells the story of you know what happens if we don't act now? Um, and then it goes through basically everything you can ever think of and then explains to you where that sits on like the spectrum of goodness or badness in relation to carbon emissions.

Speaker 1: 17:10

There's another one called how to Avoid a Climate Disaster in theory, written by Bill Gates, I think it was. Maybe someone else wrote it and slapped his name on it Classic, if you want a really good technical explanation in terms that, like a goofball like me can understand. That's a really good book that tells the you know, kind of gives you the landscape of here's what's what happens if we don't act and we don't reduce our impact. Now we're talking about you know, like the impact if we don't act. But what about if we don't measure and report and apply legislation and stuff. And you know, these things are like the best tools, the best instruments that we have and by we I mean, like you know, western culture, governments.

Speaker 2: 17:47

They're the best tools that governments have to impose improved practices, disclosure, and there's great evidence around that as well and so I mean, I look at that in 20 years time and I guess kind of what scares me there as well is like the level of reporting, regulation and knowledge that, like accountants might have to learn to like be able to work with their clients. Oh, how do I freaking learn all that stuff? Like that's, it's not something we paid attention to and and whilst, yes, you might sit here and go, yeah, nah, it's all right, we just worry about, like you know, tax and profit and those kind of things. Um, if we're looking after businesses and talking to them about like the profitability and and the way at illuminate, we refer to sustainability as like a business that can stand the test of time.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Yeah great.

Speaker 2: 18:26

It's like we have to have the knowledge of those things that will impact it. And so I look at that in 20 years time and go man the level of change in reporting that might happen. Like, yeah, we're only talking $50 million businesses in like three years from now Cool, but in 15 years from now it might be all businesses, right, 15 years for now it might be all businesses, right, you know.

Speaker 2: 18:44

It might be individuals. You know, um, I as an accountant, um who runs an accounting firm, my business might be impacted dramatically by this, whether it's the people I hire, the technology I use and all that kind of stuff. And I look at like that complexity and I just wonder if people will just freeze and not be able to deal with it like it's it sounds. It freaks me out as how complex it is and as an accountant and working with our clients, I'm like I just don't know. I don't know if we'll get the headspace for it.

Speaker 1: 19:11

Yeah, totally Are we going to have to do this shit, man.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Yeah, well, I mean I run a plumbing shop now, so like I can like deal with it on the side.

Speaker 1: 19:27

But like as to do this stuff um my best response to that, sadly, is.

Speaker 3: 19:28

I don't know if an accountant's going to have to do this work but my my gut feel.

Speaker 1: 19:31

my gut feel is that there will be some element of this kind of measurement, calculation and disclosure work that will sit either in the remit of you know, your everyday kind of management accountant or adjacent to, because it's interesting that the mindset that you're describing of like I don't know where to get started and I'm just like there's too much to think about and do here and freeze, is actually how a lot of small business owners feel when they first start their business and they don't have a good accounting practitioner and learning back into my old school zero days.

Speaker 1: 20:03

You know, the survival rate of an organisation or a small business that has a trusted advisor is significantly greater. Now we're talking about financial compliance and tax. Yes, those things are really important. You need kind of a trusted guide. Now, what's really interesting about the sustainability space or this ESG space is that a lot of the muscles that you need to measure, calculate, measure, disclose, assure, et cetera. They're very similar to the muscles that you need in the financial, like in the accounting space.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Yes, it's a similar set of skills. We're used to balancing things. We're used to saying, well, if there's a give, there's a take, if there's like this kind of stuff, and at the end of the day it has to sum up right, yeah, and there's some data somewhere that tells this story.

Speaker 1: 20:45

And this is what good quality measurement and calculation looks like. The job of audit, for example, like being able to look at a set of financials and say, oh, there was good practice that went into this preparation, or there was bad practice that went into this preparation.

Speaker 3: 21:03

Like those kinds of skills are really they're quite similar.

Speaker 1: 21:05

They're quite portable from the financial accounting space into the sustainability accounting space. What I'm not convinced of is that. Oh, let's take the example of March, april and May. Have you heard of an accountant with spare time across that season?

Speaker 2: 21:19

right, it's tax return season, I've definitely seen a few people that have junked on a LinkedIn or something like that to be like oh, you should have done all your tax by now because I'm just kicking back relaxing.

Speaker 1: 21:28

I've seen a few people promoting that Fake news.

Speaker 2: 21:31

I mean, I think there's an element of truth in some of them, but I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Look, there's the intention, there's the practice, right, but in 20 years' time we don't have to do tax.

Speaker 2: 21:41

Apparently, apparently, it's going to be automatic.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Well, yeah, Apparently, compliance is dead, and I know that you're going to get an email from a very specific friend of ours.

Speaker 2: 21:49

AI is going to do it. Ai is going to do it all for us.

Speaker 1: 21:52

It's like the bank teller argument. When ATMs first existed, all of the bank tellers everywhere this was in the US freaked out. We're going on strike. You can't replace us with robots Now. There are more bank tellers per capita now than there were then.

Speaker 2: 22:08

I was going to say I don't feel like that's the case in Australia. I feel like, oh, hold on, we're shut, We've got no branches and stuff.

Speaker 1: 22:13

I walked in and I'm like there's no one here. Look, this is a very good Joel fact that articulates a point. But basically what happened was which was what was that?

Speaker 2: 22:20

There's more opportunity, don't be afraid.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Yeah, there's more opportunity, don't be afraid. And so, in the sustainability space, I it's reasonable to think that some practitioner is going to be offering these services. I think what's an untested theory and thesis right now is that accountants and people in the accounting profession are going to pivot their practice to explicitly offer only sustainability services.

Speaker 2: 22:47

I'm going to stick a pin in that because I'm going to bring that out in a second. But I think what I'm hearing here is there's some stuff that scares us about like the reality if we don't take action. So there's like let's remove anything to do with accounting, let's just look at things as humans as well as potentially as accountants who support our clients and business. Like if we don't do stuff, bad shit going to happen and we can't just like hit, like control Z and like undo it right, there's no like one up new life.

Speaker 2: 23:13

It's not going to happen right. So that scares us. I do have an element of scare around, like the expectation of people in our position as accountants and clients who are going through and navigating the change. I think there's that you know how much more responsibility and stuff is going to be put on us as a business. But I guess what I'm also hearing there is like you might have a choice whether you get involved in that or not based on that. So what I'm going to do is we're going to put a pin. We're going to listen to some of our wonderful sponsors. Some ads, Some ads.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Go to the ads. Great, enjoy the ads.

Speaker 2: 23:46

Have a listen to the ads.

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Speaker 2: 28:57

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Speaker 1: 29:00

How good are our sponsors, joel? I'm not sure. I don't know who they are. Oh, mate.

Speaker 2: 29:04

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Speaker 1: 29:06

I mean I do. I put it on. It puts me to sleep. I put it on. I have the dulcet tones. It's the best it's supposed to wake you up and rev you up. No, the sponsors are great. Thank you, sponsors. You funded my glass of water that Andrew didn't offer me, that I got for myself.

Speaker 2: 29:21

We're not going to edit that out, but part of me is sitting here going geez. Why did I bring this bloke he's supposed to support?

Speaker 1: 29:27

me.

Speaker 2: 29:27

Friends like these. Eh, all right, we're gonna. We're gonna move to what excites us and and I guess I guess for me, taking off the back end of that, what scares this part is, like, what I see is there's a choice and there's opportunity. Um, and so what I'm excited about is, as we enter into a state where there's like, oh, there's more uncertainty about what we can do as accountants and ai and ratty, ratty rah, there is always going to be something new that we can support and use our skills that use our muscles same muscles as use your thing.

Speaker 2: 29:54

I've got lack of, that's all right. Um, so, like, something like this gives an opportunity. It says, hey, like, if you have an interest in this, you can actually spend some time and probably find a really viable, profitable, impactful business that can support your clients or other people to to stay on top of this stuff as an accountant. So I think that excites me in terms of, like, wow, like, yeah, there's some crazy shit, but like, if we can help to bring change and positive and impact in a good way, how cool is that? Like accountants, see the bloody side of the day again, right.

Speaker 1: 30:24

Totally.

Speaker 1: 30:25

I think there's a number of drivers for businesses of any size to be thinking about this stuff today Like there's mandatory stuff on the horizon and if you look 20 years ahead, yeah, sure, we expect there to be more mandatory stuff. But in the voluntary space the drivers are really interesting in that some of them are commercial but some of them are like we just want to really do good, impactful work. So that excites me a lot, that there are organisations in this country that do good practice, and by that there are organizations in this country that do good practice. And by that I mean you know they measure good, they report good, they run good programs, they make donations, they do volunteering, they invest in their communities, Not because they have to but because they feel that it's the right thing for them to do.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Now, you know there's that argument that everything is selfish, and so you know what makes you feel good. That's a bit selfish, but that's a good thing, that's a good driver. But then there's all these like. There's heaps of great research around this. You know, millennials, in particular millennials and younger, will switch jobs. Like, if they have an equitable set of conditions, set of pay, set of everything. But if you know, If they have an equitable set of conditions, set of pay, set of everything but if the target organization does a better job of telling their impact story, then you're likely to change.

Speaker 1: 31:39

It's like 98% off the charts, making commercial decisions with your wallet, where you go shopping, right? So it's like who are you going to spend your money with? Is it this toilet paper brand or this toilet paper brand that plants trees and saves the world? Which one is more attractive? Which one's likely to?

Speaker 2: 31:55

take, is this where greenwashing and shit comes in, though?

Speaker 1: 31:58

Obviously, this is a thing where I'm like yeah, yep.

Speaker 2: 32:02

I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but Rainforest Alliance coffee, I've heard, is like a massive freaking roar. It's like the definition of what they say to be Rainforest Alliance is like one tree per like 100 kilometers or something stupid like that. Well, there's also like yeah, I can, don't get me started I don't want you to bash on anything, because this is your field and your job.

Speaker 1: 32:19

What you do, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna bash anything, but I but I will say that there are do it, there are good standards and there are kind of rubbery standards, but you, you mentioned the word greenwashing, which is making a claim that you can't substantiate, either because it's not true or because you don't have the data to back it up. So this is a huge. This is dipping back into. What scares me a little bit is where organisations make these assertions without any way of assuring that they are correct or true. And so good management, know, good management, good data hygiene, good governance will render good disclosure. And so, you know, I think what excites me is that this stuff's becoming more mandatory, and so like I think.

Speaker 2: 33:07

I think because of the more knowledge we have about it, the more we can see the greenwashing elements. And I look in that in that 20 years time, like the knowledge that we'll have as as the human race around this stuff, even even people who are, um, either choosing to be ignorant, unintentionally ignorant, or like not even born yet, right? So the knowledge that we'll have at that point in time is we'll have a greater power and greater knowledge to be able to make positive impact collectively, as opposed to right now. There's like a handful of people who have knowledge, like yourself and others, and who are, you know, operating and choosing to utilize that as a career path and impact, because you, you want to like knowing, you, you want to do good, you want to be in a place where it does good. Like you're making that decision now because of the knowledge you have, but so many other people in 20 years' time will have that knowledge. That's really exciting, I think, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 33:56

and I totally agree. That is really exciting and what's really driving that excitement for me which I feel like 10-year-old me would laugh in my own face but the quality of the required disclosures is a really, really good thing. We're setting the bar really high In Australia, in particular Compliance.

Speaker 2: 34:15

Compliance mate.

Speaker 1: 34:16

I love compliance mate Like you know as much as it's a burden in this particular space. 20 years from now, the quality of the law, if you like, of the legislation, will be such that it won't just be illegal to make a green claim that's not substantiated, all it just. It won't be possible because, like everything will need to be substantiated, with data and with governance and with a demonstrated you know go back to uni days a basis of preparation that explains how you got to, how you got to what you got to. So that's exciting to me is that we're setting the bar high and organizations who have a good sense of that direction of travel are already taking action and already building out good practice and good governance and stuff they need to.

Speaker 1: 35:02

So so that excites me now and that that's kind of moving more into that mandatory space. But, um, yeah, there's some there's. I'm a nerd now. I'm a legislation nerd like I never was before this. This stuff is really exciting and important.

Speaker 2: 35:15

You were saying like double ASPs and stuff before.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2: 35:18

I was like I don't even know those things, man, I deal with the little guys, Don't say that too loud.

Speaker 1: 35:24

Got to keep that TPB happy mate. That's all right, we got this going mate Cool.

Speaker 2: 35:33

I think there is a lot of things to be excited about as an accountant in the accounting community, whether you're someone that has a passion for the planet, the people and the things that we spend our time with and you get excited about that. Whether you're an accountant that simply looks at what does my future look like. I spent time speaking to some high school kids recently and that stuff is exciting for them.

Speaker 2: 35:54

That stuff is looking like. So I think in our industry there is plenty of opportunity for us, to you know, have business models that allow us, to you know, evolve and deliver services in that space. But, also to have businesses and ourself and be employees and team members of businesses that are like that too.

Speaker 2: 36:11

And I think, yeah, I think, and that enforcement stuff was, I think in the early days can feel icky and gross and like, oh, don't force me to do that, I want to bloody do that. After you kind of start doing it, you're like, oh, actually, maybe there was a legitimate reason around why I shouldn't be, like you know putting asbestos in my house.

Speaker 1: 36:29

Yeah, or silica in benchtops, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Oh that's a plumbing reference.

Speaker 1: 36:36

Plumbing. There you go, Silica for those playing at home.

Speaker 2: 36:39

If this is pre-30 June 2024, you're allowed to currently buy engineered stone services because there's silica in it, but don't, because if you cut them, you'll Well if you cut them in the improper usage way. If you don't follow the appropriate things, you get some shit in your face. Do you know where the most silica?

Speaker 1: 36:56

is, though, in the lungs of the guy who installed my benchtop at my old house. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 37:01

Just don't go inhaling the beach, old house, is that right?

Speaker 1: 37:04

let's just don't go inhaling the beach, yeah right, because it just is full of sand. It is just there, that, um.

Speaker 2: 37:07

But yeah, so all right, so let's, let's go. So we talked about what we think the future will look like. We talked about what scares us. We've talked about what we're excited about. Um, you're a man of action, I'm a man, I think. I think we're people of action ali ali loves action, sure, um, we're not here about you know, shallow, hollow, fucking.

Speaker 2: 37:22

Let's just tell people that the world's going to burn, but some people won't and they'll be fine and carry on what the heck can we do and this is talking to accountants Now accountants who are humans, accountants who service their customers as well, accountants who run a business. If you can think from the three elements of who we are, what can we be doing now to better prepare for the 20 years time from now?

Speaker 1: 37:45

Yeah, okay, so I know you've talked about this before on the podcast, but the way that your employee base works is going to change, right, so it's changing, workers becoming more democratized, workers have more choice, and so I think it's really important to think about, like, what are the values and the what's the purpose?

Speaker 1: 38:08

What's the story that I want to be able to tell my current employees, my future employees, my, you know, call it the talent lens. Put the talent lens across that narrative, like, what is it that you want to be able to talk about? But you talk a lot about purpose, right, and and being purpose driven and and purpose-centered, and I think this is a space where you can not just talk about it but really put that stuff into action, right. So think about your own programs, think about the way you run your own business, and so do you make community contributions? Do you volunteer? Do you? Can you substantiate the claims you make around those things with data and, and so what's the? What's the practice you need to develop to do that stuff with, with quality right now?

Speaker 2: 38:50

and I and I think to to follow on that as well as, like you know, as accountants, we all know that like there are things that you can manipulate, so, like, if you're trying to set things in place to I wash my work uniform very regularly and yeah, or even like oh, we give 10% of profits.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Yeah, what's a profit we?

Speaker 2: 39:07

can change that number. So if you're going to look at things, what you do as best as you can put it in place where it can't be manipulated, so then you can stand up hand on heart and say no man, it is what it is Because what's weird is that, for the first time ever, consumers and employers will say oh, you said you give 10 of profits.

Speaker 1: 39:27

Can you show me how you do that? Can you show me how you determine what profit was? Who signed off on this? How many directors are present? What are those directors? Conflicts of interest, etc. Etc. Etc. So, um, yeah, so you know. Coming back to your question, um, what do you need to be thinking about now? I think thinking ahead to what is it that my people, current and prospective are going to want to see in an organization and how can I build the practice that I need to build now to be able to tell that story. That's one element.

Speaker 1: 39:53

I think you touched on this before, but there's this whole universe of opportunity that is opening up in terms of, just, literally, service provision. I'm a small business. I want to tender to coles. Coles has said that 75 of their supply chain needs to have a science-based target set by 2030. Um, I don't know what that is. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to get started. What can I do? So you know, we all know, that the first person a small business person calls when they have a question like this is usually you know their accountant after they're made at the pub, after they're made at the pub bloody, I know what I'm bloody now, don't worry about the environment.

Speaker 2: 40:29

It's gonna be fine. She's all good, it's all. It's all about the cows it's not.

Speaker 1: 40:34

It's not johnny, you're incorrect um, but yes, so you know you need to be able to, I think, talk at least to. What are the um? What are the steps that you need to follow as a small business to get ready, to get compliant, to get access to that supply chain, to get access to that capital that has some other encumbrance on it? That means you need to set a science-based target or measure and disclose or whatever. So there's these service lines that didn't exist or, sorry, that did exist 10 years ago, but they existed in environmental consulting shops.

Speaker 2: 41:04

Yes.

Speaker 1: 41:05

And now they could and this is what I was saying before, I think this is an untested thesis is that they could exist for accounting practitioners also, but to what magnitude we just don't know yet. And, like I say, like, how many accounting practices are already running at capacity and worried about, like, making money where they're at right now trying out a whole new line of services and a whole new, you know, way of thinking, a whole new universe of problems, of learning, of potentially certifications that they need to achieve, software they need to understand well, that's partnership opportunities there too, like you find people who are great at and you go like because those shops exist already.

Speaker 2: 41:43

Yeah and that's probably one of those things out there too is like this stuff is going to be more and more important. And you know there's. You know there's things like B Corp and all that kind of stuff where you know probably a handful of your clients if you're listening to this in your car a handful of your clients might even be B Corp registered Totally. Does it make sense to you? Are you comfortable with that? Like are you able to assist with that? It could be like get that knowledge and understanding and all of a sudden it can open doors for you in terms of what the future brings to you and to your point before.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Don't be afraid Like approach this stuff with an open I don't know, get all weird for a second but an open heart and an open mind, and mostly because if you don't, you might be leaving money and value on the table in your organization, so in your practice, your accounting business, I know, is the term we like to use because we're not practicing.

Speaker 2: 42:32

I don't practice, I do. I was at a university the other day and the professors introduced and I said excellent, great. So I'm glad I'm here today, because if you can't do it, you teach. So now you've got someone who actually knows what they're doing in the room and their professors are okay with that.

Speaker 1: 42:46

My brother was a PE teacher and we used to say if you can't those that can't do, teach those that can't teach. Teach PE Exactly.

Speaker 1: 42:52

And he didn't like that very much. So, yeah, I think there's like the how do I keep good people, how do I find good kind of build my business for the slightly medium and longer term of what are the potential services that I could fold in alongside the work that I'm already doing for clients. And what's been really interesting is to sitting on the kind of vendor side of this question for the last little while is, if you're already delivering services to a client that look and smell like carbon accounting, because you're already delivering services to a client that look and smell like carbon accounting, because you're already doing regular old accounting excellent regular old accounting maybe it's not that much of a leap to then start adding some of these services into your services mix. But also maybe it is a big leap and I don't know because I'm not an accounting practitioner but maybe there is some adjacency there that makes natural sense.

Speaker 2: 43:47

I'd absolutely be encouraging our community to continue to do the research. If you have an annual retreat, put some time aside to actually have a conversation around sustainability. If you have team-wide check-ins and that kind of stuff, throw out, what do you guys think about this? See if there's interest in there and see if there are people with maybe more knowledge than you realized.

Speaker 1: 44:08

Yeah, pay attention to your professional bodies as well, because they are all talking about this stuff.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Obviously they can go to sustainlife. They could and there's common accounting and there's knowledge and connection like this the Sunday the guys from Sunday as well just raises crap ton of money. Good on them. Hopefully. Do good stuff, anyone anything else?

Speaker 1: 44:29

yeah, I mean there's a, there's a stack of account carbon accounting platforms that are out there that will give you the practical knowledge and then some of the more kind of strategic knowledge that you need.

Speaker 3: 44:39

Okay you know I'm a bit biased we do.

Speaker 1: 44:42

sustain life does a really, really good job of that. So if you check us out on YouTube or you know I'm a bit biased, Of course Sustain Life does a really, really good job of that. So if you check us out on YouTube or just punch our name into a search engine, you'll find us sustainlife. But there's a wealth of books. The UN does a great job of communicating around this stuff.

Speaker 2: 44:58

Let's go hang out at the UN. Everyone will be counting. So we're going to go to the UN next year. Yeah, do it Stuff to the UN next year. Yeah, do it Stuff. Zero Con, it's just the UN.

Speaker 1: 45:04

Con. Maybe you could go to the UN General Assembly, like wherever it is in New York. I don't even know where Zero Con is, anyway, whatever. But there's other resources, other places where you can go and find. I think you don't need to be an expert. This is the other thing that I think is important to talk about. One of the other things is, as practitioners we're really used to, or accountants are really used to, being an authority and knowing like we used to talk about it. Accountants love to learn, just in case. Just in case a client needs to know. The accountant wants to be fully locked and really competent because they've got a lot at stake.

Speaker 1: 45:42

Right, you give a client bad advice you tell them the wrong thing, then you get in trouble, they get in trouble. There's a lot of risk there, and so accountants are really good at knowing their stuff. You don't have to be an expert in this domain to add value. You'll find that even just knowing where to point people is a really, really helpful start. And so, yeah, some of those resources, if you find them useful, stick them in your bookmarks folder, and when your client asks about this thing whether it's b corp or the australian sustainability reporting standards that are coming early next year, or it's modern slavery or the gender wage gap or any of those other things that businesses are thinking about and need to worry about now yeah, if you can point them in the right direction, then that will be of great help to them love that in a moment we're going to cut to ali.

Speaker 2: 46:27

She's going to have listened to us talk hopefully she gives us 10 out of 10 for the content um, but also she's going to.

Speaker 2: 46:34

She's going to give a quick little summary of, like, what she learned, what she thought, but I'll give my last, my last little action and then we'll cut to that and we'll come back and say thanks. But maybe this is another one of those little heart things. Right, I feel like sometimes I sit there and I'm like, yeah, but who cares about that? It's not going to impact me. I was like, yeah, but I've got a kid who's like 30 years younger than me and it's going to impact them and one day they might have kids. And just thinking of paying attention to this world of sustainability and what we can individually and collectively do within our businesses and our industry is like, if we can keep having an awareness and appreciation of that, we don't have to. I mean, yeah, great, if you want to go on like, literally, you know, change the world tomorrow and just drop your accounting firm and do that, I mean you do that.

Speaker 1: 47:18

But like, just have a broader awareness and appreciation that, yeah, it might not impact you, but it will impact people eventually yeah, and like whether you have kids or not, you know, I think just being a good citizen is taking care of this thing. Just give a shit about other people, yeah, and like I don't know, it's just something about doing good work.

Speaker 2: 47:35

It feels good, doesn't it? Yeah, do you go and pick stuff up at like the beach every now and then, just for fun?

Speaker 1: 47:40

Yeah, it's something that my kids and I love to do. We do a little litter pickup, tear around the street around our neighbourhood and fill up a firewood bag full of rubbish and, yeah, we do it frequently.

Speaker 2: 47:48

It's great, it's good, I like that. All right, we're going to hear from Ali and then we're going to come back and say goodbye, ali. What have you got for us? Excellent. Given that you and I didn't listen to Ellie's feedback, I'm sure it's going to be glorious.

Speaker 1: 48:06

Thank you, ellie, for giving us 10 out of 10.

Speaker 2: 48:08

Excellent. I'm not sure if she's going to let me run one of these by myself, or if she's not going to let you go on, or if she's going to ask you to replace me. It's going to be something like that, yeah, I don't think any of those things will happen.

Speaker 1: 48:19

I think she'll just be be clapping us into happiness.

Speaker 2: 48:22

Excellent.

Speaker 1: 48:23

Clapping us into happiness.

Speaker 2: 48:24

I don't know what that was, but she'll be.

Speaker 1: 48:26

She'll be very complimentary because we were excellent.

Speaker 2: 48:28

Excellent. Mr Jelhana, thank you so much for giving your time for for our community. To me you're a good man. I appreciate what you're about and I I really love to watch you get out, and when you get passionate about this stuff, it reminds me why what passion is.

Speaker 1: 48:42

So thank you for your time and hopefully we'll um hopefully our community will see you out and give you a high fiver again, thanks for having me, andy, and yeah look forward to uh talking to you more about sustainability at another time when you've got the most sustainable accounting practice and other businesses that you're involved in putting all the pressure on me. That's right, yeah all right, thanks, see you friends, thanks for joining on the adventure.

Speaker 2: 49:02

Um, catch us, where all good stuff is Give us likes, reviews and comments and shit and all that kind of stuff, and if you think that's rad, you're rad. All right, I'm out of here. Catch you later. Ellie, I'm sorry if I fucked this up, but I'm sure it was good. Bye, bye, bye.

Speaker 3: 49:25

First off, a massive shout out to Joel, our sustainability expert. Joel, you're an absolute legend. Your passion and knowledge are exactly what we need in this space right now and, honestly, I'm glad I was sidelined for this episode because you absolutely smashed it. It seems to me like we're talking about how we, as accountants and bookies, can be sustainability superheroes. Yep, you heard that, right Capes and all superheroes. Yeah, you heard that, right, capes and all this takes me back to my CAAMZ Acuity podcasting days, where I had the pleasure of chatting with Bruce Gilkyson and Jane Gleason-White about the risks of climate inaction and how we can lead the climate revolution. It was so good it was split into two episodes, so check out episode four and five if you get the chance of the Acuity podcast.

Speaker 3: 50:03

Bruce and Jane made it clear that we accountants and bookies are essential in the fight. We've got the power to measure and disclose environmental, social and governance factors, which blends that financial and non-financial data. They spoke about the magic of six capitals, which is financial, manufactured, human, intellectual, natural and social, and that the holistic approach encourages businesses to think long-term and sustainable. I mean imagine incorporating the value of clean air, happy employees and strong community ties into your reports. They gave a huge shout out to New Zealand for leading the way with awesome policies like the Zero Carbon Act and mandatory climate risk reporting, because those initiatives ensured that businesses stayed committed to reducing their carbon footprint. So, australia, I think we need to take some notes and follow suit. And Bruce also talked about the Maori-owned Waka 2 Incorporation, which has a 500-year plan. Yep, you heard that right 500 years. I mean, that is forward thinking. So we need to listen to the young voices and ensure we leave the planet in better shape for future generations, because we're aiming to be good ancestors and I know it's a bit uncomfortable for us number crunches, but hey, we're superheroes. So we got this right, and I think my key takeaways were to embrace the non-financial data. We shouldn't be scared of it. It's time to look beyond the balance sheet and start valuing natural and social capital. It's not just a trend, it is the future.

Speaker 3: 51:29

We need to support our clients to integrate those sustainability practices into their business, because they're going to need to do it if they supply to large corporate or government and we can make a difference in helping them. It might even turn out to be a specialist service, like the R&D guys and all the other specialist services that we have, and I think it will impact our client base positively. Our future hires and clients will expect us to lead in sustainability, so this is a real opportunity. I want you to check out Sarah Lawrence from Hot Toast, who's an absolute legend. She's recently become B Corp certified and I think that's the way that we all need to go, and I also took a look at what apps can already help to support us in this space. There's Kogo, which calculates your business's carbon footprint using Xero data and it provides detailed reports to the stakeholders. There's Carbon Trail, which uses AI to automate carbon accounting based upon your Xero transactions. There's Evaluate Sustainability, which links to your financial accounts in in zero to measure carbon emissions, and there's actually so many more.

Speaker 3: 52:28

So what are the actions we need to take? Measure and report. Start tracking our ESG factors using tech and apps. It might seem daunting, but remember, even an elephant is eaten one bite at a time. We need to be able to collaborate with the community to upskill and work with the government and big biz.

Speaker 3: 52:41

Supply chains are dead set, crucial here. Let's set those ambition goals, like let's aim for net zero by 2050. We've got to go for it and let's avoid the greenwashing. Let's be really genuine in our efforts, and authenticity here is key. Let's embrace these challenge as an exciting opportunity to save the planet for future generations. Sure, there's going to be some red tape and it requires a new skill set, but we're up for it. We love action right. So 10 out of 10 lads and high fives all round. Joel, you were phenomenal. We couldn't have asked for a better expert to guide us through this episode. And Andrew, you're all right, I'm just kidding. You were amazing as always. Thanks for tuning in legends. Until next time, keep saving the world, one sustainable action at a time, and don't forget your capes.

Speaker 2: 53:37

Wasn't that a fun adventure, my friends. Thank you so much, so incredibly much, for hanging out with us today. Ali, you've been amazing. Andrew, you've been alright. How good is it to be able to have adventures together.

Speaker 3: 53:49

It so is, and you know what. Keep following us. We are all over the socials at Accounting Adventures. Check us out on the website. Give us a bit of a like. You know how much we love that stuff.

Speaker 2: 54:01

The best thing about the adventure is the people that we do it with. So thank you so much for listening, thank you so much for hanging out with us, and please bring all the ideas. Keep, keep them coming. We can't wait to share more cool adventures with you. We love you, guys.