A4S Annual Summit 2017 – Reflections from 2016
by Steve Roder, Chief Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Manulife and Co-chair of the Canadian Chapter of the A4S CFO Leadership Network
Today’s CFOs have an opportunity to effectively respond to emerging trends and play a lead role in helping their organizations focus on sustainability to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing global economy.
As co-chair of the Canadian Chapter of The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) CFO Leadership Network, I am excited to attend this year’s A4S Annual Summit. After the last year’s Summit, I was inspired and motivated to take action and help move the Canadian Chapter of the A4S CFO Leadership Network, including my own employer, Manulife, forward along sustainable development.
Last year, at the 2016 A4S Summit, HRH The Prince of Wales, spoke of business solutions evolving in this time of “Great Acceleration” and how businesses that do not account for this change will be left with unsustainable business models.
After the A4S Summit, I walked away with a greater understanding of the bigger picture – we have all the knowledge we need, and it is now time to take action.
One of these learnings was the role that finance can play in measuring what we always like to think of as our real value creating capital: our people. Many companies like to say that their people are their greatest asset, but how can they value human capital and measure how well they grow it? It was fantastic to see the tools that some of our peers developed towards measuring this non-financial capital, which is why we are excited to be part of the A4S Social and Human Capital Accounting project team.
Measuring the value of our people, through the lens of social and human capital accounting, will enhance our ability to understand where we are in our human capital development, and attract and retain top talent. We are ultimately dependent on engaged employees to drive our customer-centricity forward.
As the CFO of Manulife, embedding sustainability into decision making is vital. As an investor in long duration assets that enhance environmental sustainability, such as renewable energy infrastructure and green buildings, and as a life insurer with policies that extend over 20 years into the future, I am encouraged and inspired by the progress made so far. Make no mistake, this is the beginning of our journey as we, finance and accounting professionals, balance short term and long term thinking whilst integrating sustainability into business planning and implementation.
As I prepare to attend my second A4S Annual Summit this November, I look forward to sharing my experience of embedding sustainability into our business. As the Co-chair of the Canadian Chapter of the A4S CFO Leadership Network, I am open to learn from my peers around the globe who are committed to building resilient businesses with long term, sustainable value creation deep rooted in decision making.
