Accounting for Sustainability assignment:

“how can we best Account for Sustainability?

Overview of Assignment 1: The assignment requires you to investigate a topical sustainability issue that affects society at large. You will be asked to draw on your own research as well as your personal context to develop your response in a creative way. Research skills involve searching for, and the synthesis of information, as well as the communication of your findings in creative and visual ways. The task will also assist in the further development of research and visual communication skills. Students are provided a creative opportunity to visualize how to communicate accounting based information. It is these creative skills that are in high demand by current and future employers. This assignment is to be undertaken individually. Detailed information on Task 1 and Task 2 of this assignment are provided below.

Task 1 Requirements: Creative Poster

“What could an ‘Account’ for Society look like?”

Using the knowledge developed in your higher education so far, your own independent research and your own experience from living in communities, you are required to create a visual creative poster that explores this question. Your poster needs to be created as at least an A4 size. How you choose to design and create your poster is up to you.

• Investigate the topic of an Account for Society using research and reading material, what kind of accounts for society exist already – are these fitting or flawed?
• Use your imagination and creativity – what could such an account look like?
• Try to think outside the square and step away from any pre-conceived ideas about what an account usually looks or ‘should’ look like. Perhaps by thinking in visual ways.
• There are no word limits for your poster but it might be useful to consider how best to represent the information you would like to present.
• Assess the limitations that you are working with in your poster design.
• Include the three dimensions of sustainability (social, economic and environmental)

As outlined in the marking rubric, you should try to use as little words as possible and only where really needed.

The above question should be answered through a poster presentation. The poster may be created on paper or electronically, and needs to, at least, have a size equivalent to A4. There are no limits being placed on you as to how you can visually create the poster. If created electronically, the poster should be saved in a .pdf format and uploaded.

HELPFUL QUESTIONS:

Question “I’m not really sure what it means when referring to an ‘account’ for society.”

Response: I completely understand that this is a very challenging task, as it is designed for you to unlearn what you know about accounting so far, and re-imagine what accounting could be. As such, please try to move away from traditional accounting in the accounting equation/journal entry sense. The task is not aimed at you replicating any existing account of society (for instance, gross domestic product, GDP or the ‘well-being’ budget of New Zealand), but at creating your own. However, having said that, you might find inspiration through examples such as the pre-named ones.

Question “I think what I’m most confused about is what accounts for society exist already – because I’m not really sure what you mean in that sense”

Response: This is exactly the point of this task that makes it so difficult. There is no specific expectation towards you in the sense that your account needs to look a certain way; it is up to your imagination. Given the context of the class, it may be worth taking the three aspects of sustainability into account though.  Indeed, when looking across the submitted assignments, I am sure we will see a huge variance of what an account for society looks like to different students. This is often shaped by our knowledge templates (i.e., what we have learned so far) and how far we are able to remove ourselves from it (which is a difficult task in itself). It might help you to approach your task by doing a mind map exercise first, in which you determine what society consists of, i.e., the parts and subparts and sub-sub parts of society. From there, you could then start to explore how we might be able to account for these parts.

Let’s go with an imaginary scenario that may help you get started with the assignment: imagine you worked in a marketing/design/advertising firm and your boss asked you to create a book cover for a book that has detailed and highly complex instructions as to how nations should account for society – which you are unable to understand as you have no background in accounting (remember, this is an imaginary scenario) – what would this book cover look like?

Question: “I am not sure if we have to provide certain measures and or recommendations on how to account for society. Also, what is meant by an account?”

Response: An account is simply the collection (this would be your research), recording and communication (this would be through your poster) of information. In this case, the current state of sustainability within society. Transferring this to the task, this means you are meant to create an account for society; i.e., provide an account for society in terms of sustainability. This may relate to today (i.e., what does society look like at the moment in terms of sustainability) and/or tomorrow (i.e., what will/could society look like in the future). This could be done through the most simple representation as ‘The Simpsons’, by including simpons figures of colour, different ages etc. with each figure tackling a different sustainability aspect, which you could integrate in a bigger context depending on where the figures are, or it could be done through a more complex representation as seen in newspaper cartoons or aboriginal/indigenous art. However, these examples should not take from your imagination, they also shouldn’t serve as a “this is what it needs to entail or look like”. Yours may be totally different. I guess the big challenge that you need to overcome is “trying to get it right” in order to achieve a high mark, as this constrains your imagination. I hope this makes sense, and helps.

Assessment criteria for 10 points:

Poster overall: Purpose, scope & position- Audience awareness- Critical presentation -Concise and clear findings- Communication of content through poster medium

• The poster is comprehensive and concise. Creativity and imagination is used to fully address the task. A clear, well integrated position is evident throughout. Discussion and findings are persuasive and engaging. Clear consideration of medium and visual representation.

Judgement and argument: Logical progression -Critical evaluation- Development of argument- Degree of support

• There is thorough analysis of the issues with meaningful evidence. A logical, wellsupported and convincing argument is presented.

Communication: Cohesion e.g. use of accurate, concise language

• Language is concise, accurate and engaging.

Creativity and Design: Use of imagination-Creative presentation-Clear use of poster design with informative material, use of colour, diverse use of material.

• Distinct use of imagination, creativity and/or design. Significant diversity in presentation of material Use of written text is carefully moderated