The Accounting Paradox | A Roundtable with Jeremy Nicholls Hosted by GIST Impact

​Accounting standards are not neutral. They determine what profit means, what markets reward, and by extension, what behaviours capital incentivises at scale. These standards allows accounts to be reported whilst costs relating to social and environmental harm are excluded. Unless this is changed markets will continue to price in the wrong things - and inequality, climate breakdown, and nature loss will continue to increase.

​This is the argument at the centre of The Accounting Paradox, the new book by Jeremy Nicholls, an Ashoka fellow, co-founder of Social Value International and one of the principal architects of the SROI methodology. Since its release, the book has reached Amazon bestseller lists in 13 countries. You can purchase the book here.

​The True and Fair Project

​Alongside the book, Jeremy leads the True and Fair Project, hosted by Social Value International. It challenges whether financial statements can give a true and fair view when they exclude the real costs of doing business — carbon, water, unpaid labour — and works within existing legal frameworks to make the case that they cannot.

​GIST Impact is hosting an roundtable bringing together a small group of senior practitioners to interrogate these ideas and their implications for investment, regulation, corporate governance, and the future of value itself.

​The discussion will be chaired by Ashok Khosla, founder of Development Alternatives, joined by Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, former Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation, Nandakumar S, CFO Tata Chemicals and Jeremy Nicholls, author and co-founder of Social Value International. The event will be introduced and hosted by Pavan Sukhdev, Founder and CEO of GIST Impact, economist and UNEP Goodwill Ambassador.

​What to expect

​A moderated discussion of no more than 90 minutes, followed by open dialogue over dinner. The format is deliberately small - this is a working conversation, not a panel presentation.

​Who this is for

​Senior sustainability and CSR leads, impact investors, policy professionals, and legal advisors working at the intersection of capital, governance, and systemic change.

​Attendance is by invitation only. Places are strictly limited