The ACES project aimed to support higher education institutions in enhancing their financial administration teaching addressing better the needs for sustainable accounting and reporting practices, particularly for businesses driven by sustainability concerns or adopting circular economy (CE) business models. We also aimed to increase understanding of the role and potential of accounting standards and their interpretation in supporting the transition to CE by: 1) Combining existing research with insights from leading companies in CE to verify our concern and project hypothesis. 2) Creating novel teaching materials for European HEIs, which could be integrated into both qualification programs for future professionals and flexible training aimed at upskilling current professionals. These teaching materials were shared into three modules: CE Business models, CE and managerial reporting, CE and Financial reporting. Adapt the materials created to our everyday education. 3) Finding, developing, testing and adapting fun, effective and innovative pedagogical methods. 4) Sharing the created content online (synchronized and asynchronized) and in the classroom and make them transferable. 5) Increasing awareness.
The EU aims to make the economy sustainable by turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities, as reflected in the European Green Deal. One way to achieve this is to resource efficiency through a transition to a Circular Economy (CE), fundamentally different from the linear (take-make-waste) economy. We figured that accounting and reporting in circular economy companies might have to settle for practices that don't really work for them as our current accounting standards are designed for a linear economy. In Addition, The European Commission (EC) provided new guidelines on non-financial reporting, supporting transition such as the Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD). Despite easing requirements, the fact remains that there are several frameworks used for sustainability reporting, including the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. With our project we aimed to collect knowledge and understanding, raise awareness, provide training and support within the frame of these phenomena. We also wanted to make the learning of difficult and often boring subjects more motivating. Thus, we also took up the challenge related to teaching skills and pedagogy.