Cost Management: Measuring, Monitoring, and Motivating Performance, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 17

Sustainability Accounting

In Brief

In the last decade, more emphasis has been placed on the role of environmental and social issues in business operations. Organizations are increasingly incorporating these issues in strategic management and reporting on environmental and social performance. Many of the management and cost accounting practices learned in earlier chapters of the textbook can be adapted to provide information managers need to measure, monitor, and motivate organization decisions affecting the environment and society. These methods include identifying relevant quantitative and qualitative information for short-term and long-term decisions, process costing, activity-based costing, Grenzplankostenrechnung (GPK), resource consumption accounting (RCA), life cycle costing, variance analysis, net present value and other capital budgeting techniques, value chain analysis, performance measurement, and balanced scorecards. In addition, new management and cost accounting practices are being developed such as tracking the inputs and outputs of materials and energy through an organization's operations to help managers identify opportunities for reducing waste and emissions.

This Chapter Addresses the Following Questions:

• Q1 What are sustainability and sustainable management?
• Q2 What are sustainability accounting, sustainability management accounting, and sustainability ...