How an accounting tool can help us move beyond environment, social, and governance reporting (ESG) to action

Environment, social, and governance reporting (ESG) has failed to produce a reduction in the negative impacts of business activity. Companies produce reports, but reporting has become a goal in itself—not addressing the issues. Harpinder Sandhu writes that for the goal to shift to “action for sustainable development”, companies must incorporate the true cost accounting (TCA) tool, which includes a dollar value of all negative impacts in the balance sheet.