Abstract
This study aims to show, according to the accounting standards, what should or should not be recognized and/or disclosed as environmental liabilities. It also aims to verify through of a real case, the capacity of the Eco-efficiency Indicators of providing information that allow an evaluation of the companies’ consumption of natural resources in their activities. The company under study was the Companhia Siderúrgica de Tubarão (CST) within the period from 1999 to 2003. The findings show that the traditional accounting model contemplates the recognition and demonstration of the possible environmental liabilities when companies exceed the legal limits of pollution, and/or when they assume constructive environmental liabilities. We still conclude that the Eco-efficiency Indicators proposed by the ISAR/UNCTAD would meet satisfy, at least partially, society’s demands for information that allow an increased control over company’s actions regarding the consumption of natural resources within legal and constructive limits. Finally, we emphasize the results are valid only for the searched company, the specific case analyzed.
Highlights
IIn the last decades the depletion of the ozone layer, the global warming, the occurrence of acid rains, the pollution of rivers and seas, the depletion of tropical forests and other factors resulted in a series of efforts aiming to raise people’s awareness about the relevance of measures taken to preserve earth’s natural resources
As this study focuses on the relationship between the entities and the environment, it is necessary to discuss four sub-topics: (1) environmental liabilities; (2) pollution generated by the productive process and its relationship with the environmental liabilities; (3) the relationship between corporate performance and environmental liabilities; and (4) the utility of eco-efficiency indicators to supply information demanded by the society
Based on the theoretical discussions raised on this paper, one can build the premise that the traditional accounting model contemplates the recognition and demonstration of the possible environmental liabilities when companies exceed the legal limits of pollution, and/or when they assume constructive environmental liabilities
Summary
IIn the last decades the depletion of the ozone layer, the global warming, the occurrence of acid rains, the pollution of rivers and seas, the depletion of tropical forests and other factors resulted in a series of efforts aiming to raise people’s awareness about the relevance of measures taken to preserve earth’s natural resources. Several people are worried about corporate performance regarding to the search for profit by overusing endangered natural resources, which are extremely important for the survival of human beings in the long run In this context, accounting has been frequently mentioned to be able to highlight to the society the relationship between the companies’ search for profit maximization and the environmental impact of such activity, by disclosing the existence or not of environmental liabilities in the financial statements. This study aims to contribute towards the subject in two ways: (1) an understanding on what, according to the accounting standards, should or should not be recognized and/or disclosed by the companies; and (2) an application of the Eco-efficiency Indicators to check their capacity of providing information that allow an evaluation of the companies’ consumption of natural resources in their activities, what could be called a “moral debt” of the pollutant agents with the society. The company under study was the Companhia Siderúrgica de Tubarão – CST2
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