ABSTRACT
Accountants gather data and provide purpose-oriented information for management as an aid to decision-making and as a basis for fulfilling accountability to internal and external stakeholders. Good information can be an important foundation for improving a company's environmental record and contributing towards its sustainable development. The chapter outlines the fundamental accounting process. It provides an overview of the major environmental management accounting (EMA) tools presented in the EMA framework. Environmental accounting provides monetary, physical and qualitative information to management about the environmental impacts of business and the financial consequences of environmentally relevant business activities—information that supports internal and external decision-making, reporting and accountability. A number of issues of conventional financial accounting carry over to monetary external environmental accounting when it is based on the same conventions and principles. Disclosure of environmental liabilities is required in order to assess the monetary environmental risks facing the business.
