The Cheat Code to a Better World: Why Accounting and Accountability Changes Everything

When you think about what it will take to save the world, you probably picture breakthrough technologies, sweeping political reform, or grassroots activism. You probably don't picture ledgers, reporting frameworks, or data verification. But I've come to believe that the hidden cheat code to a better world lies in two deeply unglamorous concepts: accounting and accountability. If we want to solve the most complex, existential challenges of our time, from the climate crisis to deep social inequities, we need to fundamentally change what we measure.

Because in business, and in life, if it isn't measured, it isn't managed.

My understanding of our relationship with the world didn't start in a boardroom or a university lecture hall. It started in an Aboriginal community in the Kimberley, in the remote north of Western Australia, where I spent the first five years of my life. Sustainability wasn't a word in my vocabulary then; it didn't need to be. You understood it simply by watching people fish, forage, and tend to Country. The knowledge that the land is your life source, and that the relationship between people and place must be maintained with deep care and mutual respect. It was an early lesson in ultimate accountability to the community you live in and the people you serve.

The other formative influence from those years was my mum. She was a remote area nurse in the public service, not making headline decisions, just doing the work. That persistent, present-in-the-room service is what real impact looks like. She went on to become the head of the International Council of Nurses, but the lesson I took from watching her wasn't about titles. It was that change happens through the people closest to the problem, doing the work with rigour and care. It's a lesson that stayed with me long after we left the Kimberley.

From assurance to sustainability economics

When I came to study accounting, it was partly because I was good at it and partly because it seemed like a pragmatic choice. I started my career at PwC in assurance before moving to Norway to study natural resource economics, combining that into a double masters in Sustainability at HEC Paris. It wasn't until afterwards I reflected on the fact that I was the only person in the class with an accounting background. As part of the masters I was fortunate to travel to places like Albania and Botswana, spending time with governments and industry who were all trying to figure out a massive, complex puzzle: how do we price the value of nature and the wellbeing of communities?

Through all of this, I kept coming back to one inescapable reality. Accounting is the language of business. It is how organisations understand themselves, allocate resources, and set their direction. But for most of modern history, only financial factors made it into that language. If we want the world to change, we have to change the language we use to hold power accountable. We have to translate our impact on the planet and on people into metrics that can't be ignored.

Where theory met the dirt

The turning point for me, where theory finally met the dirt, happened in Tasmania. I took a role at a local mining company, a significant user of natural gas and a heavy carbon emitter. For the first time, I was on-site, close to the actual machinery of heavy industry, seeing what it really takes to change an operation. I got deeply involved in energy reporting and emissions tracking, which eventually led to a wildly ambitious project: replacing natural gas with hydrogen in some of our blast furnaces.

We built the business case, applied for grant funding, and brought the organisation along on the journey to get it approved. Seeing that project move from an idea to a funded reality was formative, but the biggest takeaway wasn't just about the carbon saved. It was about how we took the workforce and the local community on that journey. It showed me that true accountability isn't just about environmental outputs; it is about organisations being answerable to the people whose lives they impact. If we could do this here, using the right tools and frameworks of accountability to honour our social and environmental obligations, there was no reason we couldn't scale this everywhere.

Tradition, disagreement, and cohesion

That work of bringing a workforce, a community, and a leadership team along on a hard transition taught me something I'm reminded of every Easter at home. My family is deeply into politics, and we disagree sharply on most of it. I'm an atheist and a vegetarian, but every year I sit down with them for the traditional 12-fish feast and say grace. This year I brought a massive chocolate fish. It was a hit, and it's become a new tradition we carry forward together: proof that you can stay true to your values while still showing up for the people who matter to you.

I think about that a lot in the context of the massive shifts we need in society. The challenges we face require people with deeply different worldviews to find common ground. We don't need to paper over our disagreements; we need to identify what is genuinely shared and build from there. Social cohesion isn't soft. It's the infrastructure that makes hard problems solvable, and it demands that businesses see themselves as part of the communities they operate in, not separate from them.

What success looks like

So, what does success actually look like? Success is the moment when a CFO opens a board report, and financial and non-financial factors sit side by side. They are presented with equal rigor, equal trust, and carry equal weight in the decisions that follow. Not as a compliance exercise. Not as a gesture toward ESG optics. But because an organisation genuinely cannot understand its own performance without measuring the broader impact it has on the people it serves. That is the cheat code. That is what Sumday is building toward. And that is why I believe accounting and accountability will save the world.