From Accounting to Environmental Accountability

Like all creative enterprises, music enterprises are often founded and led by creative people with artistic or technical backgrounds. In Europe and the U.S., most music technicians, artist, and their managers work in very small enterprises. These enterprises usually need qualified business or financial administrators and HR- or data specialists. They often see accounting as a necessary or even unnecessary evil that is only used to report taxes. The accounting system is often outsourced to a chartered accountant or an accounting firm, and accounts are only reviewed when it is absolutely necessary: on Tax Day.

Accounting is not a beloved activity. In the last 20 years, almost all European countries allowed further and further simplifications in financial accounting and reporting as well as tax reporting. Our experience is that, in many cases, this has led to oversimplification: the resulting financial accounting system needs to be revised to support a loan application, grant administration, or simply to identify perils to profitability or opportunities for economic growth. Such a revision is a great opportunity to take into consideration the needs of sustainability reporting.

Less accounting and less granular information on the creative enterprise’s activity means less accountability for the economic or social impact of the enterprise. Creative enterprises are parts of complex value chains around film productions, music festivals, or advertising, to name a few, where tracing sources of water use, carbon footprints or strengthening injustices against women in pay or opportunity are not trivial. We believe that some level of accounting is necessary for accountability in terms of sustainability.

Eviota for Music and Eviota for Film aims to support micro- and small enterprises with better management, supported by connected financial and sustainability accounting that reflects the management novelties of 2023. We do not claim that sustainability management can be performed based on financial accounts. Still, we are confident that a financial accounting system must also register every economic activity with an environmental and social footprint. We want to help creative businesses adjust their accounting, controlling, and reporting practices because they can be more profitable. They can access the new, supported green loans and insurance. They can gain new grants and donors. And eventually, they can avoid greenwashing and pinkwashing.

Eviota is simple but not oversimplified. We connect your general ledger to reliable benchmarks and apply double materiality facts to focus your attention on financial performance and your environmental footprint. We aim to create a reliable, informative overview of your enterprise in less than an hour and start planning your transition to a more sustainable growth path.