Training Italian accountants to take up the sustainability challenge

Sustainability concerns us all, and the Italian profession is well aware of that. The National Board of Professional Chartered Accountants (Consiglio Nazionale dei Dottori Commercialisti e degli Esperti Contabili – CNDCEC) have been enhancing sustainability education for their members. This is even more relevant as the new European legislation on corporate sustainability reporting includes education requirements to provide assurance on sustainability reporting.

In Italy, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is provided at local, regional and national levels to professional accountants and trainees enrolled in the registers maintained by Local Professional Chapters. CNDCEC plays a key role in accrediting each of these training events and courses.

Local level

In 2022, more than 110 sustainability conferences, seminars and workshops have been organised, covering a wide range of subjects. In several cases, professional development was offered in a high-level CPD courses, structured and realised in cooperation with universities and other academic organisations. Last year, these initiatives were mainly focused on:

• legislative context and disclosure (e.g., SFDR and CSRD)
• finance
• governance (e.g., CSDDD proposal)
• strategic planning for SMEs and SMPs
• reporting and standards

CNDCEC has already approved over 30 programmes in 2023 all of which are issued on the national CPD platform.

Regional level

There are 15 High CPD Schools (Scuole di Alta Formazione – SAF) for professional accountants, two of which offer a specific development and training course on sustainability matters. These are highly structured training courses, with specialised, wide-ranging topics on sustainability that are organised in 100 hours and structured in 5 modules:

• strategy and management
• governance and control system
• measuring and reporting
• finance and risks
• disclosure

National level

CNDCEC’s 2022 national annual conference was devoted to sustainability development. The event examined sustainability’s political and strategical perspectives for the accountancy profession while considering other major economic actors: international professional organisations, national regulators, business and bank associations, as well as academics.

In parallel, CNDCEC cooperates with academia, ministers, and governmental agencies through an observatory to track the CSRD implementation across Italy. We have also partnered with the Reports and Sustainability Group (Gruppo Bilanci e Sostenibilità – GBS) to streamline scientific report drafting and create new advanced academic programmes.

Find more information on CNDCEC & visit our Members’ initiatives on sustainability education.

1.400 professional accountants attended the event