Sustainable Business

Chapter 8

Accounting

Accounting for the sustainable business extends beyond traditional financial and managerial accounting. Rather than externalizing the social and environmental costs of doing business, sustainability accounting seeks to honestly track, measure, and report direct and indirect economic, social, and environmental impacts of the business’s operations. In other words, sustainability accounting seeks to internalize costs that have heretofore been externalized. Sustainability accounting may be known by other terms, such as social accounting, environmental accounting, social and environmental accounting, or social and ethical accounting, auditing, and reporting. Accounting specifically focused on greenhouse gas emissions is referred ...