ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how an environmental cost accounting system works and how it can improve the results of performance-oriented audits. An environmental cost accounting system is a flow and decision-oriented extension of traditional cost accounting systems. To examine how environmental cost accounting can deliver useful information for auditing, it makes sense to distinguish between internal and external audits. Environmental costing accounting contributes to an internal pricing system which evaluates inputs, processes and products with their real costs. Ansari et al. argue that the correct assignment of environmental costs to their perpetrators can help reduce costs in other areas too. The bill of environmental impacts of an input includes all environmental impacts which can be traced back to a single material or energy source. The bill of environmental impacts of a process contains environmental impacts which are caused if a process is carried out. The bill of environmental impacts of product significant environmental impacts can be assigned correctly to a product.
