I will say it plainly: with this post, I — Linda — am not backing down. I remain convinced that accountants are very well placed to handle sustainability reporting under the VSME standard. I would like to explain why.

It is true that accountants are not, as a rule, the fastest adopters of new things — but that is not a criticism, nor a label. It is entirely understandable that when a working process has remained the same for years, adapting to new requirements can feel daunting. But in today’s constantly changing environment, staying current is essential, and it is precisely here that accountants hold a very strong position.

I have a background in accounting and spent 17 years working as an accountant, including 10 years as a self-employed practitioner offering the service alongside two highly capable colleagues. I could be described as an “experience mentor” in accounting. I have seen how the field has evolved over time. Having spent the last five years making a career pivot to study environment and industrial ecology, I now see a much broader picture and am able to draw connections across disciplines.

The workload on accountants has decreased

Modern accounting is no longer what it was ten years ago. Much of what was once time-consuming manual work has been automated and digitised:

  • e-invoices flow directly into accounting software and recurring invoice accounts are assigned automatically;
  • payroll software calculates taxes, leave, and sick days independently, with files exportable directly to the bank;
  • employee data (employment register, leave, contracts) is managed in HR software rather than spreadsheets;
  • paper invoices and receipts no longer need to be physically collected;
  • built-in validation checks in software help prevent errors.

All of this means that the time-consuming manual routine has largely disappeared, and accountants now have considerably more capacity for analytical work and new subject areas — including sustainability reporting.

How work used to be

I still remember the days when every Monday morning I would drive a circuit of clients to collect stacks of paper invoices and receipts. It was an enormous time commitment. On top of that, everything had to be entered separately into the accounting system and the bank. The volumes were not small.

About ten years ago, when income tax on salaries was not proportional, it was often cheaper to do payroll in a spreadsheet. I have manually processed payroll for 300 employees — cross-checking everything, calculating leave and sick days, preparing personnel documents, and entering payments into the bank line by line. Double-checking every step, because one thing you must never get wrong is an incorrectly calculated salary.

Today everything is different:

  • the work is paperless;
  • account codes and amounts for recurring invoices populate automatically;
  • payroll and HR management are automated;
  • files can be exported directly to the bank.

That earlier manual work simply no longer exists. The workload has decreased substantially, and this creates the capacity to take on new areas — provided accountants are open to change.

Does the accountant have the data?

All the data needed for the VSME standard is already available to accountants — it is simply embedded in the system as cost entries.

Environmental data (Scope 1, 2 and 3):

  • electricity and thermal energy (kWh on invoices);
  • fuel (type and litres on invoices);
  • water and wastewater (m³ on invoices);
  • waste management (m³ on invoices);
  • purchased goods and services (from invoices), and more.

The basic module of the VSME standard is even more straightforward, as it requires only Scope 1 and Scope 2 data. These simply need to be converted using emission factors, for which ready-made models exist (such as the KLIM model). It is a matter of adding the correct factors to the table. I can assist with this and explain clearly what the scopes mean.

Social data block:

  • headcount and gender breakdown is available from the employment register;
  • training invoices are already in the accounting system;
  • to access workplace accident data, the manager can grant access to the Labour Inspectorate’s TEIS system;
  • labour practices comply with the Estonian Employment Contracts Act. In Estonia, the employment of minors and child labour is prohibited, and working conditions and employee rights are protected by law.

Governance data block:

  • the necessary information (owners, management board, risk management principles) can be readily obtained from management. This is primarily a one-off description that only needs to be updated periodically.

Once this data has been compiled and documented the first time, it only needs to be updated in subsequent years.

The future: automation

I believe that accounting software will before long be capable of automatically summing annual quantities (such as energy in kWh), since this is not technically complex if the quantities are already flowing in from invoices. It would also make sense to embed the Ministry of Climate’s carbon footprint calculation model’s specific emission factors directly into accounting software as defaults, so that the programme calculates CO₂e automatically as soon as a quantity is entered. That database is updated periodically. This would make sustainability reporting significantly easier and faster for accountants.

I also believe this should be incorporated into accounting training curricula. Accountants are precisely the professionals who hold the data and who can report it accurately.