Environmental Accounting and Reporting as a Tool of Ensuring the Sustainable Development of the Economy

Abstract

AbstractCurrently, ensuring the sustainable development of the economy is one of the topical issues of society. The traditional goals of the business are considered to be the expansion of production capacity and profit maximisation. However, in the contemporary world, the range of tasks facing the corporate sector is considerably widening. Nowadays, companies should take responsibility for their activity, strive to reduce a harmful impact on the environment. Ecological problems exert influence on enterprises’ operation, their financial standing and image. Therefore, environmental accounting aimed at collecting and systematising data on the ecological aspects of the organisation’s activity, which are reflected in environmental reports, is becoming particularly important. The relevance of environmental accounting and environmental report generation is due to the existing ecological imbalance around the globe, the development of a socially responsible business and the increased information requirements of stakeholders. The research aim is to define the prerequisites for the emergence of environmental accounting and reporting as a separate area of accounting as well as to analyse the trends of the development of this sphere. To achieve the set goal, the authors have used empirical and theoretical scientific methods. The article examines the factors contributing to placing environmental accounting in a separate subsystem of accounting as well as identifies the objective, tasks, objects of environmental accounting and the users of environmental reports. The authors consider the ways to reflect accounting information in the system of environmental accounting, its methods as well as principles for defining report content established in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards. The publication analyses international standards following which it is possible to conduct environmental accounting and compile environmental reports. Special attention is paid to identifying the pros and cons of environmental report generation. At the end of the article, the authors note the revealed trend of a steady increase in the significance of environmental accounting and the expansion of the scope of its application.KeywordsEnvironmental accountingNon-financial reportingSustainable developmentAccountingIntegrated reportingGlobal reporting initiativeEnvironmental activityJEL ClassificationM41