I believe the accountancy profession has the potential to play a huge leadership role in acting on the climate crisis. We as a profession have a role to play in solving this problem, and it will only be achieved through collective action across business, government, NGOs and civil society. ICAEW have already embarked on our decarbonisation journey and are here to support our members and firms by providing the necessary tools and guidance to do the same. We hope that the Net Zero Now Protocol will encourage our members to embark on their own net zero journeys.

Achieving net zero needs careful and consistent measurement, accounting, reporting and verification – and accountants’ skills are vital to realising all this. ACCA has supported the protocol development to help practitioners on their businesses journey. As a professional body with our own commitments to the UN SDGs - including achieving net zero - we know that our members are committed to contributing solutions in the public interest and achieving climate change targets. Being part of this prominent steering group will ensure a consistent and co-ordinated approach as reaching net zero cannot be done in silos – it needs integrated thinking, expertise and action.

AAT is pleased to be part of the influential steering group developing the Net Zero protocol for the accountancy sector. Sustainability and net zero are key themes for AAT and we welcome anything that can help engage and support our members in developing their businesses to drive the UK toward our national 2050 net zero target.

Tackling the climate crisis needs to be a collaborative effort including organisations of all sizes.  The Good Business Charter is a deeply practical accreditation and we want to ensure our current and potential members, especially the smaller ones with fewer resources to work on this, are connected in with effective ways they can meet net zero.  We have a good number of professional services firms and we believe working on a protocol that takes their specific industry and sets out tangible ways to achieve net zero will be such a valuable tool.  Given the range of sectors we encompass we look forward to sharing all of Net Zero Now's well-developed protocols with our members.

The accountancy profession has a huge part to play as companies look towards calculating carbon footprints and how to plan for Net Zero.
AIA is firmly committed to educating its members and embedding green finance and sustainability into our core activities.
Therefore we are very pleased to be working in partnership with Net Zero Now to provide our members with an industry-backed, sector specific platform which offers our members a clear, simple route to make an immediate impact on the climate crisis.