THE HARMONIZATION OF ECO-EFFICIENCY STANDARDS: AN ANALYSIS ON THE ENERGY ENTERPRISES OF THE G7 GROUP AND THE EMERGING E7 COUNTRIES

Andrey Bulgakov,Arseniy Krikunov

doi:10.32479/ijeep.9065

Abstract

Attempts are being made to harmonize the many standards of business practice that exist outside of financial reporting, but they are limited either to a single industry or to the views of individual researchers. In this article we have harmonized international standards of eco-efficiency, compiled on the basis of multi-stakeholder approach and tested the set of indicators developed for the energy companies of the Group of Seven (G7) and the Emerging Seven (E7). We analyzed the non-financial reports of 56 companies from the global reporting initiative database for the period 2015-2016 and plotted the decoupling of value added and environmental pollution. The study found that G7 energy companies do not adhere to the concept of sustainable development, while for E7 companies there is an absolute decoupling except for greenhouse gas emissions. We come to conclusion that socially responsible companies are able to gain competitive advantages in the framework of sustainable development, provided the transparency of business.

Highlights

Information outside the financial statements has the status of best business practice and the problem of integrating such practices into existing accounting systems is the choice of non-financial information that would be really useful and in demand, as well as the choice of metric approaches for its evaluation - with the help of indicators, performance indicators, etc
The Mechanism of such a choice should be justified and one of such a mechanism is the harmonization of business practice standards, which set the format for voluntarily prepared non-financial reports
We have identified three more business practice standards, one international and two national, respectively, that encourage businesses and stakeholders to use eco-performance indicators, namely: Guidance on corporate responsibility indicators in annual reports of the intergovernmental panel on international accounting standards of the United Nations (UNCTAD, 2008), A workbook on calculating eco-efficiency indicators of The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy of Canada (NRTEE, 2001), and the standard for eco-industrial parks HJ/T274-2015 issued by Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China (MEP, 2015; Huang et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Information outside the financial statements has the status of best business practice and the problem of integrating such practices into existing accounting systems is the choice of non-financial information that would be really useful and in demand, as well as the choice of metric approaches for its evaluation - with the help of indicators, performance indicators, etc. The Mechanism of such a choice should be justified and one of such a mechanism is the harmonization of business practice standards, which set the format for voluntarily prepared non-financial reports. Sustainability is among the most significant practices that have become integral part of firm’s strategies over the past two decades. The most important purpose of the use of eco-efficiency indicators is to assess the sustainability of enterprises with verifiable indicators

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion