ACCA Opens its Sustainability Hour Initiative to over 144 Schools

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants has said that over 144 Nigerian schools would benefit from its newly launched My ACCA Sustainability Hour as part of its commitment to ensuring the accountancy profession can take a leadership role in the attainment of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

The initiative targeted at schoolchildren in Nigeria was launched in Lagos on Friday. The programme, which will run for six months, with monthly modules covering selected UN Sustainable Development Goals, will mainly target students aged 10–16.

According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025, which is the 10th annual stocktaking of global progress toward the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, only 35 per cent of SDG targets are on track or making moderate progress. Nearly half are moving too slowly, while 18 per cent are in reverse.

Speaking during the launch event, Director – Africa at ACCA, Jamil Ampomah, reiterated the urgent need for accelerated action on the commitments of the SDGs.

“While countries across Africa are embarking on various development endeavours in their national plans as cascaded from the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the 2030 Agenda’s goals of a more equitable, prosperous, and sustainable future are threatened.  Global progress has stalled or reversed due to escalating conflicts, climate change, and economic downturns.  Focusing on transformative entry points like education bridges the gap between goals and policy, investment, capacity building and more complex realities such as cultural dynamics,” he said.

Special Adviser to the President on the National Economic Council and Climate Change, Rukaiya El-Rufai, welcomed the ACCA Sustainability Hour initiative for schools.

“Education remains vital for sustainable development, yet, according to the 2025 SDG report, 272 million children and youth remained out of school in 2023.  While dealing with this harsh reality, we must prioritise teaching SDGs in schools to empower future generations with the knowledge, skills, and values to address complex global challenges like poverty, climate change, and inequality, fostering global citizenship, critical thinking, and collaborative problem-solving for a more just and sustainable world,” she noted.

The ACCA Sustainability Hour initiative for schools introduces students to sustainability through topics such as climate action, water management, waste management, energy management, poverty, and hunger, with each of the six modules focusing on a specific UN Sustainable Development Goal.

The programme is designed with a scalable, adaptable, and inclusive framework for global implementation, ensuring it caters for diverse educational environments.

Also, ACCA has targeted 2045 to reach net zero, starting with a 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. ACCA’s first-ever climate action plan marked a major step in turning that ambition into action, as it sets out the steps the organisation will take in 2025-26 to reduce emissions across its operations and supply chain.

This will lay the foundations for a successful and sustainable transition. The plan has been independently verified by BDO, a global leader in assurance and professional services.  ACCA’s net zero target has also been formally verified by the Science Based Targets Initiative, meaning its goals are credible, globally recognised, and, most importantly, grounded in science.

ACCA is a globally recognised professional accountancy body providing qualifications and advancing standards in accountancy worldwide. Founded in 1904 to widen access to the accountancy profession, it has long championed inclusion and today boasts a diverse community of over 252,500 members and 526,000 future members in 180 countries.