P5考官有关环境管理会计文章Word下载.docx

1、The global profile of environmental issues has risen significantly during the past two decades, precipitated in part by major incidents such as the Bhopal chemical leak （1984） and the Exxon Valdez oil spill （1989）. These events received worldwide media attention and increased concerns over major iss

2、ues such as global warming, depletion of non-renewable resources, and loss of natural habitats. This has led to a general questioning of business practices and numerous calls for change. These questions have not only been raised by organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, or groups of

3、 eco-warriors, but from the United Nations, the European Union, the UK government, the British Bankers Association, insurance companies and pension funds. Recognition that our current way of life poses a threat to us and our planet, has led to global agreements on action to prevent future environmen

4、tal damage. Such agreements include the Montreal Protocol, the Rio Declaration, and the Kyoto Protocol. Businesses have become increasingly aware of the environmental implications of their operations, products and services. Environmental risks cannot be ignored, they are now as much a part of runnin

5、g a successful business as product design, marketing, and sound financial management. Poor environmental behaviour may have a real adverse impact on the business and its finances. Punishment includes fines, increased liability to environmental taxes, loss in value of land, destruction of brand value

6、s, loss of sales, consumer boycotts, inability to secure finance, loss of insurance cover, contingent liabilities, law suits, and damage to corporate image. Nearly all aspects of business are affected by environmental pressures, including accounting. From an accounting perspective, the initial press

7、ures were felt in external reporting, including environmental disclosures in financial reports and/or the production of separate environmental accounts. Much has been written about the nature and quality of these accounts （see Gray and Bebbington, 2001 for an introduction into this area）. However, e

8、nvironmental issues cannot be dealt with solely through external reporting. Environmental issues need to be managed before they can be reported on, and this requires changes to management accounting systems. Environmental Review of Conventional Management AccountingIn an ideal world, organisations w

9、ould reflect environmental factors in their accounting processes via the identification of the environmental costs attached to products, processes, and services. Nevertheless, many existing conventional accounting systems are unable to deal adequately with environmental costs and as a result simply

10、attribute them to general overhead accounts. Consequently, managers are unaware of these costs, have no information with which to manage them and have no incentive to reduce them （United Nations Division for Sustainable Development （UNDSD）, 2003）. It must be recognised that most management accountin

11、g techniques significantly underestimate the cost of poor environmental behaviour. Many overestimate the cost and underestimate the benefits of improving environmental practices. Management accounting techniques can distort and misrepresent environmental issues, leading to managers making decisions

12、that are bad for businesses and bad for the environment. The most obvious example relates to energy usage. A recent UK government publicity campaign reports that companies are spending, on average, 30% too much on energy through inefficient practices. With good energy management, we could reduce the

13、 environmental impact of energy production by 30% and slash 30% of organisations energy expenditure. Frost and Wilmhurst （2000） suggest that by failing to reform management accounting practices to incorporate environmental concerns, organisations are unaware of the impact on profit and loss accounts

14、 and the balance sheet impact of environment-related activities. Moreover, they miss out on identifying cost reduction and other improvement opportunities, employ incorrect product/service pricing, mix and development decisions. This leads to a failure to enhance customer value, while increasing the

15、 risk profile of investments and other decisions with long-term consequences. If management accounting as a discipline is to contribute to improving the environmental performance of organisations, then it has to change. Environmental Management Accounting （EMA） is an attempt to integrate best manage

16、ment accounting thinking and practice with best environmental management thinking and practice.Environmental Management AccountingEMA is the generation and analysis of both financial and non-financial information in order to support internal environmental management processes. It is complementary to

17、 the conventional financial management accounting approach, with the aim to develop appropriate mechanisms that assist in the identification and allocation of environment-related costs （Bennett and James （1998a）, Frost and Wilmhurst （2000）. The major areas for the application for EMA are: in the ass

18、essment of annual environmental costs/expenditures product pricing budgeting investment appraisal calculating costs and savings of environmental projects, or setting quantified performance targets. EMA is as wide-ranging in its scope, techniques and focus as normal management accounting. Burritt et

19、al （2001） stated: there is still no precision in the terminology associated with EMA. They viewed EMA as being an application of conventional accounting that is concerned with the environmentally-induced impacts of companies, measured in monetary units, and company-related impacts on environmental s

20、ystems, expressed in physical units. EMA can be viewed as a part of the environmental accounting framework and is defined as using monetary and physical information for internal management use. Burritt et al developed a multi-dimensional framework of EMA （Figure 1）. Their framework considers the dis

21、tinctions between five dimensions: internal versus external physical versus monetary classifications past and future timeframes short and long term and ad hoc versus routine information gathering in the proposed framework for the application of EMA. Figure 1: Proposed framework of EMA according to B

22、urritt et al （2001）Within this framework the different techniques of EMA - such as environmental lifecycle costing or environmental cost accounting - can be placed and assigned. The management of a company can choose appropriate tools on the basis of their information needs. Similarly, in a series o

23、f publications （1997, 1998a, 1998b）, Bennett and James describe the diverse range and scope of environmental management accounting. They provide a set of useful models, one of which is The Environment-Related Management Accounting Pyramid, to help evaluate environmental management accounting practic

24、es as well as to help in the design and implementation of new systems. According to Bennett and James （1998a） （Figure 2）, EMA is concerned with gathering data related to the environment （lowest levels）, which are converted through techniques and processes （middle level） into information which is use

25、ful for managers （top）. Key data is both non-financial and financial in nature. Management accounting techniques such as performance measurement, operational budgeting, costing or pricing are used for the transformation. Figure 2: The environment-related management accounting pyramid, Bennett and Ja

26、mes （1998A）Examples of techniquesRedefining CostsA literature review reveals various approaches to the definition of environmental costs. In 1998, the US Environmental Protection Agency argued that the definition of environmental costs depended on how a company intends to use the information, for ex

27、ample in capital budgeting or product design. They introduced terminology that distinguishes between conventional costs, potentially hidden costs, contingent costs, and image and relationship costs.Conventional costs are those raw material and energy costs having environmental relevance. Potentially

28、 hidden costs are those which are captured by accounting systems, but then lose their identity in overheads. Contingent costs may be incurred at a future date - for example costs for cleaning up. They are also referred to as contingent liabilities. Image and relationship costs are intangible in natu

29、re and include, for example, the costs of producing environmental reports. However, such costs pale into insignificance when compared with the costs associated with being seen to behave in an irresponsible manner. The infamous Brent Spar incident that cost the Shell oil company millions of pounds in

30、 terms of lost revenues via the resultant consumer boycott, is an example of the powerful influence that environmental concern has in todays business environment. Shell learned the lesson, albeit somewhat belatedly, and as a result completely re-engineered its environmental management system. ACCA h

31、as also published a research report outlining an agenda for action on full cost accounting （Bebbington, Gray, Hibbit and Kirk, 2001）, which contains a detailed review of the business case for adopting full environmental costing. One example of the potential gains from using full costing （sometimes r

32、eferred to as lifecycle costing, Bennett and James （1998b） can be seen in the case of Xerox limited. Xerox limited, a subsidiary of Xerox Corporation, introduced the concept of lifecycle costing for its logistic chain. The core business of Xerox limited is manufacturing photocopiers, which are leased rather than sold. This means the machines are returned to Xerox li