CSEAR North-Asia Hong Kong Conference 2017 From Social and Environmental Accounting to Sustainability Accounting and Responsible Investment: Emerging Research Agendas
16 Jan 2018
School of Professional Education and Executive Development (SPEED), the academic unit of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University–affiliated College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE), in collaboration with Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) at the University of St Andrews, held the CSEAR North-Asia Hong Kong Conference 2017 at Hotel ICON and PolyU Hung Hom Bay Campus on 4 and 5 December 2017. Over 35 local and international scholars were invited to present in the Conference. This Conference is funded by the Research Grants Council (RGC) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Inter-Institutional Development Scheme (IIDS) to promote research and scholarly activities for the Local Self-financing Degree Sector (Ref: UGC/IIDS24/B02/16).
Dr Jack Lo, Director of SPEED, shared in the opening remarks, “This is the first time that CSEAR holds a regional and international conference in Asia. As one of the global financial centres, Hong Kong has witnessed the growing salience of sustainability performance issues in accounting and financing among legal entities operating in the region. This conference will provide a useful platform for the sharing of current research and recent developments in the realms of Social and Environmental Accounting, Sustainability Accounting, Responsible Investment.” Prof. Peter Yuen, Dean of CPCE, said the School was pleased to have invited international speakers, who are well recognised experts in this field, to present their views. With over 120 local and overseas participating delegates, the Conference had received 40 working papers or abstracts from different countries. The Conference nurtured a dynamic international research network to foster closer collaboration between Hong Kong and the rest of the world.
There were 7 parallel sessions for a wide range of important topics pertinent to social and environmental accounting, sustainability accounting, responsible investment that are crucial to Hong Kong and the international communities. Contributors to these parallel sessions included scholars and practitioners from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chinese mainland, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, and the UK. These contributors shared their perspectives of the important research agendas in social and environmental accounting.
Prof. Ian Thomson, Director of Faculty, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK cum Conference Co-Chair, said at the Closing Remarks that the response to CSEAR North-Asia Hong Kong Conference was remarkable with over 120 participants, which was the highest attendance in the history of this series of conference. He thanked SPEED for its incredible planning and support in terms of the quality, hospitality and arrangement of the conference this year. He was also impressed by the engagement and interest of all the participants. The discussions were stimulating and rewarding. Dr Artie Ng, Deputy Director of SPEED cum Conference Co-Chair, mentioned that the knowledge exchange in the Conference was really fruitful. Local participants could exchange knowledge in different perspectives with scholars around the world in building up their research capacity. As the Principal Investigator of this IIDS project, he hoped that all the participants could foster a closer international research network in the future.