Environmental risk accounting to encourage sustainable, adaptive management practices

Kala’s presentation (paper) will outline the process of preparing environmental risk accounts which harness community learning and enable stakeholders to reduce their collective impact on the natural environment. In Germany these accounts are called analytical-deliberative platforms. Kala uses risk to integrate the multiple attributes of environmental degradation into analytical-deliberative accounts because of complexity and uncertainty inherent in contemporary knowledge about the interconnected eco-system. It has been developed into prototype software, the Integrated Risk Management Toolkit, which has been applied to a case-study of how irrigators in South Australia managed surface and ground water.

• Her research seeks to enable adaptive-management practices that have less harmful impacts on land, water and the ecosystem. Kala uses case-studies to ask:
• How to construct integrated information about environmental degradation that is attributed to human activities

How to facilitate constructive dialogue among stakeholders who share these common, albeit degraded, natural resources?

Her practical approach to sustainability goes beyond mere critique of Triple Bottom Line accounts. She proposes a responsible way forward that engages with uncertainty about the ecosystem’s complex interconnectedness, which it difficult to construct meaningful accounts that facilitate sustainable decisions. Her early publications implemented the long-recognised need for a completely new accounting mindset (or paradigm): to this end, she tapped into Beck’s and Gandhian thinking as they assert that humans are an integral part of nature and should live in harmony with the natural rhythm of life. Kala is a member of Institute of Chartered Accountants (Australia), Institute of Certified Management Accountants (Australia), and the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants.