March 28, 2025
This week, I’m giving a presentation on ways to integrate ESG into introductory accounting at the AAA’s Sustainability in Accounting conference. I thought I’d share one of the resources I developed for that presentation here on my blog. Introductory financial or managerial accounting is a great place to help students see how accounting connects to what’s going on in the real world.
I’ve created a PowerPoint slide deck that covers ESG as it relates 24 common accounting topics—everything from inventory and receivables to budgeting and decision-making. I also included slides on more advanced or emerging topics like financial statement disclosures, sustainability reporting, and ESG risks. These ESG examples don’t replace core course content—they simply give you ESG-related examples you can use while teaching traditional topics.
For instance, when covering liabilities, you might bring in the idea of contingent liabilities related to environmental cleanup. Or when discussing performance metrics, you can highlight how companies include sustainability goals in their balanced scorecards. These examples don’t take away from the technical content—they add meaning and relevance, helping students understand the role accounting plays in today’s world.
There are 24 topics in the 202-slide PowerPoint deck. Each topic in the deck contains an introduction slide, a real company example, discussion questions, and more. Here are the topics and where you can find them in the slide deck:
| Accounting Topic | Topic # | Starting slide # |
| Financial accounting basics | ||
| Inventory accounting | 1 | 2 |
| Receivables | 2 | 10 |
| Fixed assets | 3 | 18 |
| Intangible assets | 4 | 27 |
| Liabilities | 5 | 35 |
| Contingent liabilities | 6 | 43 |
| Cash flow reporting | 7 | 51 |
| Financial accounting advanced | ||
| Financial statement disclosures | 8 | 59 |
| Fair value | 9 | 67 |
| AI and data analytics | 10 | 75 |
| Sustainability reporting | 11 | 83 |
| ESG assurance | 12 | 91 |
| ESG risks and internal controls | 13 | 99 |
| Future of ESG and its impact on financial reporting | 14 | 107 |
| Managerial accounting topics | ||
| Cost behavior | 15 | 115 |
| Budgeting | 16 | 123 |
| Cost allocation | 17 | 131 |
| Performance metrics | 18 | 139 |
| Variance analysis | 19 | 147 |
| Capital investment decisions | 20 | 155 |
| Supply chain | 21 | 163 |
| Pricing strategies | 22 | 171 |
| Balanced scorecard | 23 | 179 |
| Decision-making | 24 | 187 |
Each slide in the PowerPoint deck includes a short script to help explain the topic. I used AI to generate the scripts, so they’re a great starting point—but like anything AI-generated, use with care. Make sure everything works for your class and your teaching style. You can download the PowerPoint slides here and use them however you like.
Anyways, I hope you find the ESG resources useful.
Have a great day!
Wendy Tietz
