The Accounting Paradox - How financial accounting is damaging the world (but can help repair it)

When you think about the tools at our disposal to address the ecological, social and biodiversity challenges we face today, accounting might not immediately come to mind. And yet it is accounting standards, not science and not public policy, that set out how profit is calculated, which in turn drives investment decisions. What if we demanded that those standards reflect the true cost of business and its consequences?
Unless we look again at these fundamental principles, which have gone under the radar for so long, capital markets will continue to contribute to inequality, nature loss and climate change. What's remarkable is that we already have in place everything we need for a more just and complete approach to accounting, and forward-thinking businesses are beginning to recognize that.
Jeremy Nicholls - accountant, sustainability professional, historian and activist - sets out a vision for new way of accounting, and it's one that we can adopt immediately.

About the author

Jeremy Nicholls has spent his career addressing inequality. He became an accountant to support the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, then spent some years with PWC working with Tanzania Railways. A co-founder and then CEO of Social Value International (SVI), a global community of social accountants with a mission to change the way the world accounts for value, he is now the assurance framework lead for the UNDP's SDG Impact Standards, designed to support organizations seeking to make a positive contribution to sustainability, and is an ambassador for the Capitals Coalition.
He has researched and written widely in the field of impact accounting, including regular contributions to Pioneers Post and several books

Product details

• Authors: Jeremy Nicholls
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 24.03.2026
• EAN: 9781788607131
• ISBN: 978-1-78860-713-1
• No. of pages: 220
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 17 mm
• Illustrations: 10-15: greyscale photographs, line drawings and tables, schwarz-weiss Illustrationen, Raster,schwarz-weiss, Tabellen, schwarz-weiss
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); World, History of Ideas, Accounting, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Business Ethics, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Green Business, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Accounting / Financial, c 1500 onwards to present day, Popular economics, Indo-European languages, Business & the environment, 'Green' approaches to business, Relating to adulthood, Green Finance / Sustainable Finance