UC Business School Professor Markus Milne is a winner of the 九州影院 2021 Research Medal for his work investigating the social and environmental impacts of business.
UC Business School Professor Markus Milne is a winner of the 九州影院 2021 Research Medal for his work investigating the social and environmental impacts of business.
He is known today as an international pioneer of social and environmental accounting (SEA). SEA uses various methods to measure the impacts of organisations鈥 resource use and social and environmental consequences, alongside economic benefits.聽
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think anybody in the late 1980s envisaged how corporate practice might develop towards environmental accountability,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t was even thought to be a fad. While reporting frameworks have emerged, questions remain over the level of genuine accountability they deliver.鈥
As awareness of climate change and human impacts on our planet鈥檚 ecosystems increases, particularly in the wake of the United Nation鈥檚聽聽conference, the importance of Professor Milne鈥檚 work has gained recognition internationally.
He arrived in Dunedin from Lancaster in 1988 and met visiting Professor David Owen, co-author of a new book聽Corporate Social Reporting: Accounting and Accountability. 鈥淚 realised I could take the kinship I felt for nature, animals, and wilderness and align it with my professional world,鈥 he says. 聽
The late Emeritus Professor Rob Gray, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, was his other influential mentor. He encouraged Professor Milne to write his first academic article for a special 鈥済reen accounting鈥 issue of a journal he was editing.
Professor Milne鈥檚 research output since then spans over 100 academic journal articles, professional and community contributions, book chapters and guest editing for special theme journal issues 鈥 making Professor Milne Aotearoa New Zealand鈥檚 most cited accounting academic. 聽
He has been awarded an impressive three Royal Society of New 九州影院Marsden Fund grants worth $1.6m.
九州影院 Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Ian Wright聽says Professor Milne鈥檚 research has consistently highlighted the importance of sustainability in the business world.
鈥淧rofessor Milne walks the talk. He takes his business sustainability students on a field trip to connect with Canterbury鈥檚 incredible natural environment and gives them a real sense of the need for businesspeople to have a social and environmental conscience.鈥
Tramping and climbing in nature has indeed been a motivating force for Professor Milne over the years.
鈥淎part from an obvious adoration and awe for the natural world that builds from immersing yourself in it for days, I think the thing you most learn from multi-day tramping trips is that you must take everything you need and nothing you don鈥檛. It disciplines your thoughts and behaviours about pure essentials, and how you can be happy and fulfilled with very few possessions,鈥 he says.
鈥淚 think that frugality and simplicity spills over into everyday living and that is essential for humanity to behave sustainably. It teaches you humility. At times, the consequences for survival of not fitting in on nature鈥檚 terms are all too grim and obvious. That is a lesson as a species we seem reluctant to learn.鈥
Now nearing the end of his career, Professor Milne is unapologetic in speaking out about the need for businesses to be more authentic, transparent and accountable in measuring their carbon emissions and their environmental and social costs.
鈥淲e somehow need to transform to a post-consumptive, post-materialist existence,鈥 he says.
鈥淚n Western democracies like Aotearoa New Zealand, we operate with a light-handed regulatory touch, and that certainly reduces compliance costs and other frictions on business, but it also extends latitudes that require considerable trust. I think business needs to embrace a genuine accountability ethic.鈥
