Sustainability in Accounting: An Innovative Educational Game to Develop a Critical Approach to the Discipline

The traditional economic model, centered on profit-seeking and limitless production, contributes to the global socio-ecological crisis. As a crucial management and strategic tool, accounting shares responsibility in this landscape. The urgent global issues demand a profound renovation of accounting practices to align with a new socioeconomic model that promotes social justice and respects ecological limits. This shift requires a re-evaluation of the role of accounting education in shaping future professionals. In response to this need, the rewilding accounting education approach challenges the prevailing norms to reconnect accounting to the essential needs of nature and society. Following this approach, this chapter proposes an innovative educational game that employs digital game-based learning methodology to integrate technical, social, and moral skills into accounting education. Grounded in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this game encourages accounting students to develop critical skills to question SDGs measures. While the SDGs serve as a starting point for global cooperation in creating an inclusive, non-human-centric economic model, they risk being co-opted for impact washing, obscuring the detrimental effects of the traditional financial model on nature and society. Through this game, readers will develop critical awareness, identify the ambiguities and compromises associated with the SDGs and their measures.