Synopsis

Shows how greater attention to environmental costs can improve the bottom line and promote business sustainability. Gives practical steps for integrating effective environmental accounting practices into business systems.

Executive Summary

从董事会房间到商店的地板再到市场，当环境成本被隐藏时，业务决策就会歪曲。共同的会计实践以两种方式隐藏这些成本：通过将它们埋在“非环境”帐户中，并没有将成本与产生它们的活动联系起来。结果，经理被迫做出关键的业务决策 - 在没有所有相关事实的情况下，要生产哪些产品，要使用哪种技术以及使用哪种材料。现在，由于监管，公众关注和公司承诺，这些经理比以往任何时候都更加重要，因此考虑到环境成本的范围越来越重要。

The good news is that hidden in the shadows of the information failure created by conventional business accounting practices are unexploited opportunities to increase profits, use materials more efficiently, and protect the environment. What's more, firms of any size and in any industrial sector can make such gains, given the accurate cost information that evolving environmental accounting practices provide.

Green Ledgers: Case Studies in Corporate Environmental Accounting offers an insider's view of corporate environmental accounting. It is not about the information that firms report to the EPA or even to their stockholders, but about the information they gather for their own purposes and how they use it. To explore how different firms handle this task, WRI---together with teams of academic researchers and corporate staff---studies nine companies, including Amoco Oil, Ciba-Geigy, Dow Chemical, Du Pont, and S.C. Johnson. Derived from in-depth interviews and confidential information, the case studies demonstrate how a better accounting of environmental costs leads to better business decisions---critical since firms much continually look for ways to squeeze more product out of less raw material and energy.

What did the participating corporations learn about their own practices? For openers, once the case study teams teased environmental costs out of the sundry accounts they had been hidden in, the sum could be astounding. Du Pont, for instance, found that environmental costs accounted for more than 19 percent of the total manufacturing cost of one agricultural pesticide. Relying only on conventional accounting practices, managers might never have known. Other companies made similar discoveries.

<

P>更重要的是，绿色分类帐中的案例研究描述了公司如何使用环境成本信息来提高盈利能力并降低环境风险。例如，复合材料制造商Heath Tecna的经理发现，通过更改其生产过程，它们使材料的使用效率更高，减少危险废物产生并降低成本。在Cascade Cabinet，决定从硝酸纤维素漆转换为危险物质和空气污染的来源 - 更加良性的清漆制造成本。更好地了解环境成本也会影响定价决策：当Dow Chemical在关闭产品线或投资清洁技术之间面临鲜明的选择时，其工业客户接受了稍高的价格以换取产品的供应产品。

随着一本关于新兴纪律的书，该学科涉及主流，绿色分类帐包含了引入环境会计的方法指南。想要获得福利的经理将对作者关于如何启动试点项目，确定环境成本以及将这些活动融入正在进行的业务流程中的实用建议。

As the authors note, environmental accounting is not just about generating information, but also about putting companies on a track to being leaner and greener. This form of accounting makes it possible to hold managers accountable for the environmental costs of their decisions---no matter where in the firm these play out. Environmental accounting must become part of strategic planning and capital budgeting exercises, not a free-standing effort. This means infusing core business thinking with accurate perceptions of environmental costs.

绿色分类帐中规定的案例研究和分析补充了WRI研究中提出的发现和建议，例如工作，竞争力和环境监管：什么是真正的问题？超越合规性：一种新的行业对环境的看法，并改变了技术的技术。：二十一世纪环境可持续增长的议程。尽管绿色分类帐主要针对商业受众，学者，专业协会，甚至监管机构都可以使用它来促进私营部门的更好的环境会计。