ABSTRACT
Increasing interest has recently been apparent in environmental management accounting. One of the possible reasons for this is the continuous environmental degradation produced by company activities. Another reason is the mounting complexity of the administrative and managerial problems associated with this degradation. This interest is found not only in developed countries but also in many developing nations. In businesses and in markets, environmental and social impacts generate rises in costs of cleaner investments and the need to manage the ‘bureaucratic activities’ effectively and efficiently. There is a growing need to classify these new types of costs and their drivers. Several researchers have studied the opportunities and limits associated with enhancing traditional management accounting systems in this way. In this new milieu, a key role in highlighting the importance of environmental information is played by ‘management fashion setters’. The management gurus, consultancy firms, business schools and universities and the mass media (reporting the debate over greenhouse gasses, global warming, human rights, deforestation, land degradation and pollution) operate to pursue the spread of ‘management green fashion’. It is common to find a more accountable approach emerging in the communication of sustainability performance and sometimes even in ‘greenwashing’ business activities. Consequently, there is a large, varied and growing body of literature on different concepts and practices, and this ‘green accounting’ movement has produced, quite suddenly, innovation in corporate reports to supply ethical, social, and environmental information (Schaltegger, 1998; Burritt, Hahn and Schaltegger, 2002).
