Study of environmental sustainability: the case of Portuguese polluting industries

摘要

Globalisation of economy is a reality that every region, country and company are facing. One of the globalization's perspectives is the environment, which strongly depends on industries behaviour and the utilization of natural resources. In fact the industry's management has more social responsibilities, once environment is a public good. For improving the environmental sustainability, the industry's management have to consider the account of environmental facts, which is demonstrated through the internalization of externalities, using the financial accounting and its financial statements. The majority of developed countries follow the rules of financial accounting harmonization made by international organizations, namely the International Accounting Standard Committee. The present paper analysis the environmental sustainability, based on an original survey distributed among the more potential polluting Portuguese industries. It evaluates the industries' behaviour regarding the environment and presents the correlation between financial accounting harmonization and environmental polluting facts.