ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Dutch context for environmental management accounting. It outlines three specific areas of work: on defining environmental costs, valuing the externalities created by Dutch railways, and incorporating projections of future environmental cost increases into building investment appraisal. The chapter shows that approaches to environmental management accounting are influenced by national differences. It also discusses some research projects in the field of environmental management accounting, each with its own objectives for defining and calculating environmental costs. The chapter also shows that there is no generally accepted definition of 'environmental costs'. Compensation and prevention costs that occur in the Netherlands may be very different from these costs that occur for the same emissions in other countries. The cost implications of direct regulation are illustrated by the clean-up costs of soil contamination. Covenants are one of a series of communicative instruments used by the Government in the process of formulating a policy of self-regulation.
