Latest / Chartered Accountants Global Update / Episode 1: AI, sustainability, energy, and the future of accounting. Are you ready for the 5th Industrial Revolution?

Transcript

Episode 1: AI, sustainability, energy, and the future of accounting. Are you ready for the 5th Industrial Revolution? · Chartered Accountants Global Update

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome back to Chartered Accountants Global Update, the podcast from Chartered Accountants Worldwide.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Olivia, your new host.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: My role is to bring you the best of the global chartered accountancy community every week.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first episode of season two, and we've got a great one to kick things off.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Three stories that look pretty different on the surface, but all point to the same thing.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And quickly.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the big picture.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: CAW Network USA is hosting a session this month called Beyond Accounting: The Coming of the Fifth Industrial Revolution.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the premise is worth sitting with for a second.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We all know the story of the fourth industrial revolution.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Digitizing data, automating processes, squeezing out cost and inefficiency.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Fifth Industrial Revolution, as the session frames it, doesn't replace that work, it builds on it, but it shifts the measure of success.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of efficiency first, it's values first.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Environmental impact, human well-being, and income inequality sit alongside the balance sheet, not below it.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: In practice, that's showing up as stakeholder capitalism.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Success measured not just by shareholder wealth, but by broader stakeholder value, which is pushing sustainability further into corporate reporting.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's also a sharper, more immediate angle.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Energy.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The same firms driving the current stock market boom, the ones betting heavily on data centers and AI, are running into real constraints around energy supply and security.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: For accountants, that isn't an IT problem to hand off to someone else.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a risk factor, a reporting consideration, and increasingly, a strategic one.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's move to something closer to home for a lot of firms.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Carers.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: An aging population, combined with a few other demographic shifts, means unpaid carers are now one of the fastest-growing groups within the UK's working age population.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the catch for employers.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Research from the Institute for Employment Studies shows carers are less likely to be in paid work at all, and less likely to work full-time than the rest of the population.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a talent pool quietly slipping out of the workforce.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not because people don't want to work, but because workplaces aren't always built to accommodate what caring involves.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Unpredictable hours, medical appointments, the emotional weight of it all.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Being a carer-friendly employer isn't really about one grand policy.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's flexibility that's actually usable in practice.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Line managers who know how to have that conversation without making someone feel like a liability.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And a culture where people don't feel they have to hide the fact that they're caring for someone before or after their shift.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Firms that get this right keep experienced people.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Firms that don't lose them quietly, one resignation at a time.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us neatly to our third story, because underneath it, it's really the same question from a different angle.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Who gets access to a career in this profession in the first place?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers here are stark.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: According to 2025 figures from the membership body Progress Together, around 90% of senior roles in finance and accountancy are held by someone from a higher socioeconomic background.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds earn, on average,£17,500 less than their colleagues.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the largest pay gap of any sector in the country.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: BDO is trying to change that at the entry point with a school leavers scheme, a route into the profession that doesn't run through the usual university to articles path.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Its head of audit for Scotland has been vocal about why this matters, and it isn't framed as charity.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's talent acquisition.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If 90% of senior roles come from one narrow slice of society, firms are competing hard for the same 10% while overlooking most of the available talent pool.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, there's the thread running through today's episode.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's how we define success at an industry level, how we support the people already inside our organizations, or who we let in the door in the first place, the profession is being asked to widen its definition of value.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a threat to accountancy.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, it's exactly the kind of problem accountants are good at solving.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find links to the fifth Industrial Revolution event and to both of the articles we covered today in the show notes.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if your organization is doing something interesting on any of these fronts, we'd love to hear about it for a future episode.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for this one.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Chartered Accountants Global Update.