Professor Carol Adams

Biography

Website https://drcaroladams.net/

Carol Adams’ work is concerned with the role of accounting and reporting in the relationships between business, society and the environment. For over two decades she has sought to advance practice and policy with respect to integrating sustainability considerations into organisations through applied research, leadership, standard setting, advisory work and educating the next generation of business leaders.

Carol is founding editor of the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal which she established to promote research which addresses practice and policy issues capable of improving the relationships between accounting, organisations and sustainable development.  She founded the journal because many established journals publish little if any of this type of important research.

Carol’s work has accrued approx 11,000 citations. Her 2002 and 2004 sole authored articles are the 9th and 11th most cited articles in the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal where she has four of the top 40 cited papers published in the journal’s 30 year history.  She also has the 2nd most cited article in the British Accounting Review; the 5th most cited article in Accounting Forum; and, the 4th and 8th most cited articles in the Sustainability Accounting Management and Policy Journal.

Carol consults to multinational corporations and other organisations on corporate reporting and integrating sustainability into business practices. Recent assignments have included work with Royal Bank of Scotland, Dairy Australia, Cbus Superannuation Fund and Baillie Gifford. Carol has led the development of award winning sustainability reports, management and governance processes Carol is currently Chair of the Stakeholder Council of the Global Reporting Initiative, and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland’s (ICAS) Sustainability Committee, the ACCA Global Forum on Sustainability and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board’s Technical Working Group. She was a member of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s Capitals Technical Collaboration Group.

Carol has a financial audit background with KPMG and qualifyied as a Chartered Accountant with ICAS. She holds an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and a PhD in International Corporate Reporting from the University of Glasgow. She has held senior management positions in Universities including as Head of School, Faculty Acting Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor and has previously held Professor of Accounting positions at Monash University and the University of Glasgow.  She has served on a number of Boards in the finance, education and not-for-profit sectors. She has also served as a member of the Sustainability Advisory Board for Fuji Xerox Australia and Sustainability Leadership Advisor to the Commonwealth Education Trust. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD).  She is a Professor at Durham University Business School, an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and Honorary Research Fellow at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg.