Environmental Accounting 101

摘要

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), environmental accounting is an important management tool that can be used for a number of purposes. It can improve environmental performance, control costs, help invest in "cleaner" technologies, help develop "greener" processes, and inform management decisions about product mix and pricing. In this article, I'll use the term "environmental accounting" to denote a managerial ac-counting tool used to aid term, "environmental costs," refers to (1) Costs that direct-ly impact a company's bottom line, or private costs; and (2) Costs to individuals, society and the environment, or societal costs. The concern here is private costs.