Carol Adams’ work is concerned with the role of accounting and reporting in the relationships between business, society and the environment. For over two decades she has sought to advance practice and policy with respect to integrating sustainability considerations into organisations through applied research, leadership, standard setting, advisory work and educating the next generation of business leaders.
She has been involved in various global corporate reporting initiatives and is immediate past Chair of the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Stakeholder Council, and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountant’s of Scotland’s (ICAS) Sustainability Panel, the ACCA’s Global Forum on Sustainability and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board’s Technical Working Group. Previously she served as a Director and Council Member of AccountAbility and was involved in the development of the first AA1000 Framework. She was a Project Advisor to the UK Government’s Implementation Taskforce on Impact Investing. She was a member of IIRC’s Capitals Collaboration Group, co-authored the Capitals Background Paper for <IR> and is author of The Sustainable Development Goals, integrated thinking and the integrated report.
Carol consults on corporate reporting and integrating sustainability into business practices. Recent assignments have involved assisting clients with integrated reporting, integrated thinking, approach to the Sustainable Development Goals, measuring social impact, sustainability reporting and sustainability leadership. Clients have included an asset manager (Baillie Gifford), an asset owner (Cbus), bank (Royal Bank of Scotland), asset manager, utility, university, industry body and an education trust.
Carol has served on a number of Boards in the finance, education and not-for-profit sectors. She has also served as a member of the Sustainability Advisory Board for Fuji Xerox Australia and Sustainability Leadership Advisor to the Commonwealth Education Trust. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD) and is a graduate of their Company Directors and the Mastering the Boardroom courses.
Carol is Professor of Accounting at Durham University Business School and Swinburne Business School. A number of her articles in academic accounting journals of international standing are ranked in the top 20 most cited articles in the journal in which they are published and her work has been in the news. Her research has been cited about 13,000 times. She also writes for business media and professional journals and has authored reports published by the IIRC, ACCA, CAANZ, ICAS, CIMA and CPA Australia.
She is founding editor of the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal to publish rigorous research which influences practice and policy. She is an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and Honorary Research Fellow at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg.
Carol has a financial audit background qualifying as a member of ICAS (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland) with KPMG. She holds an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and a PhD in International Corporate Reporting from the University of Glasgow. She has held senior management positions in Universities including as Head of School, Faculty Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability) and has previously held Professor of Accounting positions at Monash University and the University of Glasgow. As Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability) she led the development of award winning sustainability reports, management and governance processes.
She is an Australian and British citizen.