Environmental accounting is a subset of accounting proper, its target being to incorporate both economic and environmental information. It can be conducted at the corporate level or at the level of a national economy through the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting, a satellite system to the National Accounts of Countries. Environmental accounting is a field that identifies resource use, measures and communicates costs of a company’s or national economic impact on the environment. Costs include costs to clean up or remediate contaminated sites, environmental fines, penalties and taxes, purchase of pollution prevention technologies and waste management costs. An environmental accounting system consists of environmentally differentiated conventional accounting and ecological accounting. Environmentally differentiated accounting measures effects of the natural environment on a company in monetary terms. Ecological accounting measures the influence a company has on the environment, but in physical measurements.
Reasons for use
There are several advantages environmental accounting brings to business; notably, the complete costs, including environmental remediation and long term environmental consequences and externalities can be quantified and addressed. More information about the statistical system of environmental accounts are available here: System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting.
Subfields
Environmental accounting is organized in three sub-disciplines: global, national, and corporate environmental accounting, respectively. Corporate environmental accounting can be further sub-divided into environmental management accounting and environmental financial accounting.
Global environmental accounting is an accounting methodology that deals areas includes energetics, ecology and economics at a worldwide level.
National environmental accounting is an accounting approach that deals with economics on a country's level.
Corporate environmental accounting focuses on the cost structure and environmental performance of a company.
Environmental financial accounting is used to provide information needed by external stakeholders on a company’s financial performance. This type of accounting allows companies to prepare financial reports for investors, lenders and other interested parties.
Certified emission reductions accounting comprises the recognition, the non-monetary and monetary evaluation and the monitoring of Certified emission reductions and GHGs emissions on all levels of the value chain and the recognition, evaluation and monitoring of the effects of these emissions credits on the carbon cycle of ecosystems.
