I’m a student at Brigham Young University pursuing a master’s degree in accounting, which I really enjoy. I’m also passionate about environmental stewardship and sustainability. Often, when people learn those two facts, they see me as some kind of contradiction—like only irrational, tree-hugging people care about the environment, not accountants.
I’m not sure why I get that reaction so much. I’m not a proponent of environmental sustainability because of any passion for a related field or because of any political views I hold. Instead, I support sustainability because regardless of career, personal belief, or any other factor, it makes good, common, logical sense to live sustainably and preserve resources.
In addition to sustainability being logical, it’s supported by my religious views. Many people of my own religion seem to believe that human impact on the environment is, at best, overdramatized, and at worst, a complete hoax. To me, however, environmental stewardship epitomizes respect and care for the earth God created for us and humility before his power. Failure to care about sustainability displays the opposite- a lack of respect for God and His creations, and a self-centered view of our own importance.
Perhaps most importantly, to me, sustainability is ultimate charity for other people. Many of us find it easy to be charitable to ourselves. It’s harder to be charitable to people around us, but as disciples of Christ, we know we need to be striving towards that goal as well. What is truly the most difficult is being charitable to people one has never met—people whose suffering has no effect on your own life at all. True charity loves these strangers we will never meet and does what it can to ease their suffering. This true charity applies to people across the globe, but it is also just as true of future generations of humanity who will inherit the Earth we give them. True charity demands that we use what we have been given responsibly so that those in the future will have the same opportunities we have had.
Overall, sustainability and environmental stewardship are about common sense, religious principles, and charity. These are my personal reasons why I, an accountant, care about being sustainable.
Thomas Stanford was born and raised in the Salt Lake valley. He has always loved the outdoors and spent many summers growing up in Southern Utah with his family. To this day, he constantly seeks opportunities to get away from the city and into the beauty of God’s nature. He is currently studying accounting at Brigham Young University.
