Environmental Management, Measurement, and Accounting: Information for Decision and Control?

Abstract

This article investigates the nature and detail of environmental management systems. It explores how environmental management systems and the organization's management control systems might (or might not) be brought into harmony. The relationship between environmental management systems, environmental management accounting, and the natural environment are explained. The level of integration between environmental management systems and management control systems depends upon the strategy and objectives of the organization and the status of the environment. As long as win-win opportunities exist, the development and integration of environmental management systems and management control systems is a clear imperative. Full-cost accounting is considerably more demanding than environmental accounting and even more subjective. Despite pessimism (or perhaps it is just realism), one have an abiding belief in the importance of understanding humanity's relationship with the natural environment and the role that environmental management accounting and environmental management systems can play in that relationship.