Markus Milne
Professor, Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems
For Markus, sustainability is a “planetary imperative.” As a professor, Markus believes he has a responsibility to raise awareness of the many issues surrounding sustainability, which he endeavours to do through teaching, research and his various leadership roles. “There are many dimensions to sustainability and these all need to be addressed,” he states. “One of these dimensions is being involved in the University’s Strategy Working Group for sustainability.”
Markus also recently completed a three year research project funded by Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund. Markus’ research has focussed upon sustainability in business, and triple-bottom line reporting. “Essentially in response to stakeholder pressure, organisations voluntarily began to report on their environmental and social impacts. They were already producing financial reports,” However, as Markus’ research shows, triple-bottom line reporting has now become synonymous with sustainability, raising concerns about whether organisations actually are sustainable in an ecological and systems sense.
Markus’ research has consequently focussed on the reliability of such reporting, and on developing methods to ensure consistency in bottom-line analysis. “Unfortunately what we have found is that organisations tend to ‘cherry-pick’ information to put in reports, and the information may not be audited at all, so our research focuses on how that can be addressed.” Ultimately, business sustainability is, for Markus, a planetary systems issue. It makes little sense to him for a business to claim to be sustainable while relying on a wider system that is patently unsustainable. Markus feels that in order to create true sustainability, individual action must be complimented by cumulative, consistent and long-term changes. “I have students coming to me at the end of a year saying that they have managed to save a few thousand dollars by living more sustainably, not driving etcetera. When I ask them what they are going to do with that money, they say they are going to travel overseas, which rather destroys all the benefits accrued by their sustainable living in one hit.”
This systemic approach to sustainability is, for Markus, where the real issue lies. “We can measure and manage issues collectively, but we need to address why they occur in the first place. Why do we behave the way we behave? We are not addressing the causes nor consequences of our actions.” Markus’ focus on sustainable systems serves as a reminder that sustainability needs to be viewed within broader contexts if it is to become a reality for society today. In his words, “living sustainably creates a constant tension. Organisations often try to present themselves as the balancing factor in that tension, but it is something we need to be continuously negotiating ourselves.”
Profile by Narelle Suisted