New Project: Adoption of Sustainable Accounting Practices for Reporting -Report ASAP

Report ASAP is a new project funded under the EU ERASMUS Plus Strategic Partnership Programme; led by Dr Souad Moufty of the Business School with the help of Dr Aisha Abuelmaatti and Prof Jon Fairburn.

An individual SME may have small social, environmental and financial impact; however, collectively SMEs have a great impact. More than 70% of all pollution can be attributed to SMEs (European Union, 2010). In the EU-27, 99% of companies are SMEs and they employ two thirds of European workers (European Commission, Oct. 2010). Therefore, SMEs are key players in achieving sustainability. However, SMEs face many barriers preventing them from reporting on sustainability such as the existence of many sustainability frameworks which could be complex for SMEs, and are designed as “one size fits all” with large enterprises in mind (Tutterow, 2014). Other barriers include, lack of knowledge regarding sustainability problems and the potential benefits of sustainability practices; as well as lack of experience or expertise to address sustainable issues and lack of resources required to put sustainability practices in place.

Therefore, the aim of this project is to help small and medium size business report on their sustainability by providing the necessary training and tools for SMEs to adopt sustainable accounting and reporting practices in a cost-effective way.

The project will first carry out a needs analysis in the six partner countries to establish a knowledge gap framework. This consultation will launch early in 2018. The partnership will then produce a training course, and online training tool and a trainers’ guide. These will be supported both by the ECVET skills framework and by an achievements recognition framework (based on the Open Badges specification).

The project will run until Sept 2019. The partnership comprises: Staffordshire University- Business School (England); Business School PAR (Croatia); Civic Computing limited (Scotland); FGUGREM (Spain); Eurocrea Merchant (Italy); Ruse chamber of Commerce and Industry (Bulgaria) and AKNOW (Greece).

If you are an SME and would like to take part and attend the free training this project will offer, please email the project leader Dr. Souad Moufty at souad.moufty@staffs.ac.uk