Groups like OpenOil and Sourcemap could be the beginnings of an alternative accounting system that helps investors make sense of global businesses

If you are a socially conscious investor trying to build a holistic picture of BP’s operations, where do you turn to? Despite appearing to the public as a single entity, a corporation like BP is actually a network of more than 1,000 separate subsidiary companies operating a sprawling web of assets across the world.

The sheer amount of data generated from operations is too great for the average investor to check.

Individual investors rely on official annual reports showing a consolidated snapshot of the corporation. They are checked for accuracy and conformity by auditors, who are supposed to confirm that corporate accounts reflect a true and fair representation of the material reality of a firm.

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Such corporate reporting often conceals more than it reveals. The act of consolidating accounts immediately distorts information. For example, showing a single figure for tax obfuscates precisely where the tax was actually paid. Accounts frame reality. Employees are represented as numbers and a cost to the business, and environmental costs are not even reported at all.

The framing is hardwired to reflect the narrow interests of shareholders over the broader perspectives of other stakeholders.

Last year I attended the World Congress of Accountants in Rome, a quadrennial forum to help set global accounting standards. The behind-closed-doors politics of the event were tangible. The real power players are the global accounting firms, transnational corporations and major transnational investors. The real concerns are not issues like sustainability or labour rights. They’re about national competitiveness and profitability of large firms.

However, this closed accounting world could now be challenged by the burgeoning open data sector.

Open data

Just like we have complementary currencies to address shortcomings in national monetary systems, we now need to encourage an alternative accounting sector to address shortcomings in global accounting systems.

During the recent conflicts in Yemen we had a sudden spike in downloads of our Yemeni oil contract information Anton Rühling, OpenOil

So what might this look like? We already are seeing the genesis of this in the corporate open data sector. OpenCorporates in London has been a pioneer in this field, creating a global unique identifier system to make it easier to map corporations. Groups like OpenOil in Berlin are now using the OpenCorporates classification system to map companies like BP. Under the tagline “Imagine an open oil industry”, they have also begun mapping ground-level contract and concession data, and are currently building tools to allow the public to model the economics of particular mines and oil fields. This could prove useful in situations where doubt is cast on the value of particular assets controlled by public companies in politically fragile states.

OpenOil’s objective is not just corporate transparency. Merely disclosing information does not advance understanding. OpenOil’s real objective is to make reputable sources of information on oil companies usable to the general public. In the case of BP, company data is already deposited in repositories like Companies House, but in unusable, jumbled and jargon-filled pdf formats. OpenOil seeks to take such transparency, and turn it into meaningful transparency.

According to OpenOil’s Anton Rühling, a variety of parties have started to use their information. “During the recent conflicts in Yemen we had a sudden spike in downloads of our Yemeni oil contract information. We traced this to UAE, where a lot of financial lawyers and investors are based. They were clearly wanting to see how the contracts could be affected.” Their BP map even raised interest from senior BP officials. “We were contacted by finance executives who were eager to discuss the results.”

Open mapping

Another pillar of the alternative accounting sector that is emerging are supply chain mapping systems. The supply chain largely remains a mystery. In standard corporate accounts suppliers appear as mere expenses. No information is given about where the suppliers are based and what their standards are. In the absence of corporate management volunteering that information, Sourcemap has created an open platform for people to create supply chain maps themselves. Progressively-minded companies – such as Fairphone – have now begun to volunteer supply chain information on the platform.

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In 2014 Sedex Global announced work on an open supply chain platform in partnership with the World Bank and OpenCorporates. The London start-up Provenance aims to give small businesses and artisans the opportunity to voluntarily showcase their supply chains. Provenance is upping the innovation stakes by attempting to use the blockchain technology of Ethereum to put the information on a global distributed database.

One industry forum that is actively pondering alternative accounting is ICAEW’s AuditFutures programme. They recently teamed up with the Royal College of Art’s service design programme to build design thinking into accounting practice. AuditFuture’s Martin Martinoff wants accountants’ to perceive themselves as being creative innovators for the public interest. “Imagine getting 10,000 auditors online together to develop an open crowdsourced audit platform.”

The battle for holistic accounting is not just about incorporating new or better data into accounts. It is also about reframing that data. Christian Felber’s exciting Economy for the Common Good movement uses the Common Good Balance Sheet to reframe corporate objectives away from “what did we get out of society” to “how did we contribute to society”.

Right now these initiatives are scattered, but they are forming the outline of something potentially profound. They just might be the seeds of a credible alternative accounting sector pushing meaningful corporate transparency and positive corporate actions.