“Accounting has always been predicated on the idea of accountability,” says Sendirella. “If you take an organisation—a company, a government department, a charity—every single one of those organisations is using resources. Accounting as a profession has moved on to providing the tools and reporting mechanisms to account for these resources, as well as their monetary resources.”

In social and environmental accounting, the reports are often prepared by a person or group outside the organisation, such as a social movement or environmental group, an Indigenous/Māori group, or a labour union.

These reports, known as counter-accounting reports, often exist alongside an organisation’s own, more sanitised reports on how they are using their resources.

“The reports are one of a toolbox of tactics activists use,” says Sendirella. “They might put this information out in the public to mobilise people to demonstrate or protest, or use it to engage with the company directly and force them to be more accountable. They are also used to educate the public about what is going on more broadly in these industries.”

In the world of commercial law, many of the changes taking place are all about adapting to the increasingly digital environment, says Head of School Associate Professor Jessica Lai.

“One particular area where we see this is privacy law, which is increasingly centred on digital privacy. The law must contend with what companies are doing with the massive amounts of data they collect on individuals, particularly in light of the increasing number of hacks taking place around the world.”

Jessica says people do not fully understand how their data is being used, and may struggle to understand the laws that govern them.

“For the average person—even the average lawyer—it’s much harder to understand your legal position in the world. The technologies we’re dealing with are becoming much more complicated and, as a consequence, the laws that regulate you as a person are much more difficult to understand.”

Another significant change underway in the commercial law space is the move to further incorporate tikanga Māori into regulations and the law. “This increased understanding of the value of Māori perspectives is long overdue.”

There are plans to further reflect this in the School’s curriculum, and Jessica predicts this will become an even stronger influence in the future.

Despite the way accounting has changed over the past century, something Carolyn has reflected on as co-author of the 2020 book Celebrating One Hundred Years: Accounting and Commercial Law at Victoria University of Wellington (1912–2011) and Beyond, there is still a misconception the profession is being taken over by artificial intelligence (AI), she says.

“If you view accounting as purely bookkeeping, then yes, probably the robots are taking over. But accounting is about so much more than just numbers. It’s about how we use professional judgement to create value for organisations, and how we analyse the data,” Carolyn says.

Jessica agrees. “We’re very far off from AI being able to answer those sorts of questions.”