Anna Eitrem, PhD research fellow at NHH, went on a research stay at the University of Oxford with a Terravera project.
“Oxford is a fantastic place. The environment at the university was ambitious and very international. It was great to experience such strong interest in my project with Norwegian data.”
Eitrem researches sustainability and management control at the Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law at NHH Norwegian School of Economics. Her PhD includes a project Terravera carried out with Jotun. The project is about quantifying and modelling different sustainability topics. Eitrem is particularly interested in how the quantified information is used as a basis for decisions.
The research article has the working title “Making sustainability count: an explorative study of the process of commensuration”.
More strategic than reporting
“Commensuration” means putting a number on something, and Eitrem explains that she is especially interested in how sustainability information is weighted, assessed and used internally.
“Of course I follow the reporting side, but I find the operational side of sustainability information even more exciting. That is where the greatest potential upside lies for the company.”
Since sustainability reporting became mandatory for the largest companies, reporting has taken up a lot of space. At the same time, reporting has become resource-intensive and complex without necessarily making a big difference to either the climate or the bottom line, says Eitrem.
“It is in management control that companies can see sustainability become profitable and create the greatest impact for climate, environment and nature.”
During her stay in Oxford, several events focused on exactly this: that it is time for sustainability and management control to get more attention. This was a theme at the launch of Oxford professor Colin Mayer’s latest book, “Capitalism and Crisis: How to Fix Them”. Several prominent researchers in sustainability and business attended, including Robert Eccles, Mette Morsing and Anette Mikes.
“Sitting in an audience with some of the biggest international names and hearing them talk about the importance of management accounting and sustainability was incredibly cool.”
Eitrem was contacted by several Oxford professors who wanted to collaborate on academic articles based on her data.
“We have good access to data in Norway. The business culture is often more open than in many other countries, and at the same time Norwegian companies are world leaders in working strategically with sustainability information in management. That makes for exciting and hopefully insightful research!”