BUSINESSES in Fiji are increasingly having to ensure that they practice environmental sustainability in their businesses, hence the importance of keeping in mind a number of specifics around sustainability and sustainability reporting.
This was emphasised by New Zealand-based resource management and development planning consultancy company Pri-Plan Ltd director Mitesh Mudaliar in his presentation at Fiji Institute of Chartered Accountants (FICA) sustainability training at the Holiday Inn in Suva yesterday.
“That’s things like understanding of the planetary boundaries and how they impact the global scale, but also from the perspective of Fiji, the local community and the businesses itself,” Mr Mudaliar said.
“It’s talking about things like the Sustainable Development Goals, which is a global framework for sustainability, how organisations can align their reporting along those lines.”
The training session by Mr Mudaliar tapped on the three key pillars of sustainability; in environmental, governance and social, elaborating on the definition of each and how organisations can embed those aspects into their businesses.
Mr Mudaliar noted that the session was about understanding the legislation as it is and the legislation that is coming in the future.
“Business can start looking at the implementation of legislation in the future and what impact that’s going to have on the organisation and how businesses can start.
“They can start building themselves towards compliance with legislation, and it’s also about accountants taking sustainability leadership roles within these organisations,” he said.
FICA executive director Daljeet Singh acknowledged Mr Mudaliar for bringing his expertise to the training, stressing on the need for sustainable practices for businesses in the country.
“It’s an honor to have Mitesh Mudaliar, he excels at building effective systems in a way that enables organisations to live and continue improvements in process efficiency and sustainability.
“We are gathered here for the sustainability, as you know FICA on sustainability and climate accounting, we have ran so many sessions from 2023, we had two seminars, and we also had one climate accounting session including a technical workshop focused on sustainability reporting.
“I am grateful to the Government of the day for allocating funds upon which we are able to conduct various sessions like this,” Mr Singh said.
The training sessions organised by FICA is a partnership with Mr Mudaliar’s consultancy firm and focused on presenting a professional development forum for leaders in the finance function on implementing strong, robust sustainability strategies and sustainability reporting under the Fiji Climate Change Act.
