Activity-Based Cost Management Part I: Applied to Occupational and Environmental Health Organizations

Abstract

The fundamental purpose of an environmental, safety, and health (ES&H) department or program—to assure worker health and safety and prevent environmental degradation—can be preserved by managers who can use contemporary business management tools to solve complex business and budgetary problems. Traditional cost accounting methods do not provide ES&H managers with the cost data and business process information required to make informed and timely decisions. Activity-based cost management (ABCM) is a business tool that can be used to quantify the cost of ES&H work activities and the cost of developing and delivering ES&H products and services. Additionally, the cost data and business process information that result from applying ABCM can be used to understand why these costs exist. The concepts, principles, and nomenclature associated with the two components of ABCM—activity-based costing (ABC) and activity-based management (ABM)—are discussed in this article, as is the utility of ABCM as a tool for managin...