Framework of Environmental Management Accounting: An Overview

Abstract

This article is intended to understand environmental management accounting, its increasing importance, and new developments.

The global profile of environmental issues has risen significantly during the past two decades, precipitated in part by major incidents such as the Bhopal chemical leak (1984) and the Exxon Valdez oil spill (1989). These events received worldwide media attention and increased concerns over major issues such as global warming, depletion of non-renewable resources, and loss of natural habitats.

This study paper highlights on the utilization and benefits of using environmental management accounting for firms. In order to realize the uses and benefits of such a system, a framework is drawn to develop and implement an environmental management accounting system within an organization. The paper also compares and finds the difference between traditional financial accounting method and environmental management accounting to outline the importance of the later system in the current business environment. The research paper also discusses the methods of finding environmental costs and how the companies can accrue saving and generate revenues by separating environmental costs from general accounting. The paper attempts to find out the basic benefits companies can garner by adopting an efficient environment management accounting practice which has the primary role to lead a company in the path of progress through eco-friendly initiatives. Furthermore, the research would validate the use of system in aiding management decisions regarding designing environmental friendly products, attuning production process and managing wastes. Although, environmental management accounting is a new approach to improve the environmental performance of a company, proper implementation of the system can assure transparency for the company to report the environmental costs clearly and help them in accessing their corporate social responsibility initiatives as well. All this, in turn enhance the image of the company in the media as well as amongst its shareholders.

Keywords: Environmental Management Accounting, Environmental Costs, Physical Information, Monetary Information, Activity Based Costing

JEL Classification: M41