Technology: Report of the Expert Working Group Meeting on Improving Governments' Role in Promoting Environmental Management Accounting
Vienna, Austria, 15-16 May 2000

INTRODUCTION 

NATIONAL ACTIVITIES
DENMARK

THE NETHERLANDS

GERMANY

AUSTRIA

AUSTRALIA

UNITED KINGDOM

CHINA

JAPAN

DISCUSSION PAPERS
#1: Procedures and Principles for Environmental Accounting Metrics

#2:  EMA and Links between Different Levels of Decision-Making

#3:  Policy Options - How Government can Encourage Adoption of EMA by
        Industry

TECHNICAL PRESENTATIONS
Material Flow Cost Accounting

Using Linkages to Promote Environmental Accounting

ISAR's Work on Environmental Accounting and Reporting

Micro-Macro Linkages in Environmental Accounting

Environmental Management Accounting Network (EMAN)

FUTURE WORK

INTRODUCTION

The second meeting of the Expert Working Group on "Improving Government’s Role in Promoting Environmental Management Accounting" was organized by the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (UNDSD) and hosted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Transport.  Participants are listed in Annex 1.

Mr. Hans-Günther Schwarz opened the meeting on behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Transport and welcomed everyone to the meeting. 

Mr. Ralph Chipman reviewed UNDSD's activities for promoting the integration of economic and environmental concerns in development policies and for promoting the development of national cleaner technology strategies, as part of its work programme on environmentally sound technologies.

The work of UNEP on corporate environmental reporting was noted, as was the need to supplement this work with national policies and programmes encouraging companies to use information produced for outside stakeholders also for internal management purposes.  This idea was discussed at a panel held in conjunction with the 1998 session of the Commission for Sustainable Development.Following the panel, the USEPA and other panellists recognized the need for further discussions on national EMA programmes and requested the United Nations to organize a series of international meetings on the issue.  The first meeting in this series was held in August 1999 in Washington DC.

The first meeting of the Expert Group emphasized the need to develop general principles and guidelines for EMA; to study the links between EMA, environmental management systems, corporate environmental reports, and national environmental accounts; and to examine the policy options available to governments to promote EMA in industry and other private and public organizations.

This second meeting of the Expert Working Group was convened to discuss further the role of government in promoting EMA and to review proposals for three papers on the key issues identified at the first meeting.

The three papers will focus on:

1. EMA principles and metrics, to be prepared by Dr. Christine Jasch (Institute for Environmental Management and Economics);

2. Linkages between EMA and other environmental accounting and management systems, to be prepared by Prof. Stefan Schaltegger (University of Lueneburg) and Roger Burritt (Australian National University); and

3. Government policy options for promoting EMA, to be prepared by Dr. Deborah E. Savage (Tellus Institute).

In addition to the discussions on these three reports, the meeting included presentations from several members of the group on the status of EMA and related programmes in their countries, including presentations by representatives of Australia, Austria, China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.  Presentations were also given by Prof. Bernd Wagner, University of Augsburg/IMU; Mr. Richard Osborn, ICLEI; Mr. Yoseph Asmelash, UNCTAD; Prof. Eberhard Seifert, Wuppertal Institute; and Mr. Martin Bennett, EMAN.  Papers distributed at the meeting can be requested from:   julia.fuerst@bmwf.gv.at .
 

national ACTIVITIES

The Danish EPA is currently developing guidelines for Environmental Accounting. The present regulation is based on the Green Accounts Act adopted in Denmark in 1995.  New legislation will be discussed in parliament in autumn 2000.

The main objectives of the Danish Green Accounts are:  (i) to ensure easy access by the public (investors, press, etc.) to documentation on the environmental performance of industry and (ii) to improve enterprises' knowledge of their own environmental performance (resource consumption, choice of raw materials, pollutants/emissions, etc.). The format and type of information on emissions is not yet mandatory.  However, the Danish EPA closely monitors the report to make sure that the data provided is clear and consistent with previous reports.

1200 enterprises are required to submit Green Accounts.  10% of the enterprises requested confidentiality of the data for competitiveness reasons, and 50% of those requests were granted.  Because enterprises have considerable freedom in preparing their reports, the reports are generally not comparable between enterprises, even with a sector.  Pressure for submitting these reports comes mainly from other enterprises and not from the general public.  Only government agencies and professional bodies seem to be interested in the data so far.

Mandatory elements of the Danish Green Accounts include:  (i) identification of polluting activities, (ii) identification of the environmental authority and law regulating these activities, (iii) major environmental permits required, and (iv) a statement by the management explaining why the enterprise considers the data provided significant.

An "Evaluation of Green Accounts Progress in Denmark" conducted by the Danish EPA showed that most accounts fulfill the requirements set by the regulation.  It also showed that nearly half of the reporting enterprises had made environmental and economic improvements and that employee involvement is relatively high (63%).  Duplication of data and questions of the relevance of data were considered to be major problems.  Enterprises showed a lack of trust in adopting Green Accounts and in working with local authorities (as intended by the regulation).

The following issues will be addressed in the further development of the Green Accounts: 

Green Accounts should be supported through environmental permit requirements;

Local authorities should have responsibility for monitoring and assisting enterprises;

Additional target groups should be identified (e.g. firms with less than 20 employees) and new sectors (e.g. farming);

The Government should provide a list of "undesirable substances"; and

Information should be made available to the public through electronic media.

FO is responsible for corporate environmental reporting in the Netherlands.  It also facilitates the implementation of voluntary agreements between industry and government.

The cost-effectiveness of environmental measures is determined using the MIOW+ model to examine the economic impact of environmental measures taken by industry.  This cost-effectiveness analysis serves to standardize the calculation of the investment and operational costs of environmental measures and to allow comparison between companies.  Assessment of cost-effectiveness is based on reference values for specific sectors and processes.

The main conclusions derived from the programme are:

Payback in most sectors results largely from improved energy efficiency;

Accounts relating to the lifecycle costs of a product are used mostly for internal purposes;

Cost-efficiency is achieved through "cost sharing" between sites, companies and industry sectors;

Under the new policy in the Netherlands for reducing NO_X emissions, targets are set for specific industries, not sectors; and

Corporate environmental reporting is promoted by standardizing economic analysis methods and developing practical internal tools (including through authorities in charge of environmental permitting), without mandatory external reporting.

The Netherlands has two systems of corporate environmental reporting, one voluntary and one compulsory.  650 enterprises report voluntarily, with limited requirements for pollution and emission information.  The government has set guidelines to audit and validate data and reviews each annual report.  If a report is not approved, the company is then requested to improve its report

The Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) and the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) published a manual on managerial environmental accounting in 1996.The manual discusses the allocation of environmental costs in relation to conventional accounting.  Companies are encouraged to move towards this practice, and a number of successful case studies already exist.

The UBA is currently preparing EMA guidelines for companies.  German engineers developed a cost accounting system for environmental protection measures in 1998-99, working with the German Standardization Institute (DIN).This research will be used as a basis for the guidelines currently under development, based on existing methods for calculating environmental protection costs, energy savings, waste disposal, etc.  The project aims to identify the costs to be included, including costs for environmental protection, related management costs, and external costs.  The project will develop a glossary of terminology and methods in German and English.  The guidelines will also be integrated into existing accounting software systems.

The pre-study will be finished in September 2000.  The results will be presented in November 2000, with the final product to be presented in early 2001.  Future work on the guidelines will include advice on implementation, best practices and use by SMEs.

This project will require development of practical approaches for EMA as well as support for companies in the selection of appropriate EMA systems.  The goal is to have companies of similar size and management use similar systems, in order to have a loose form of standardization.  However, standardization is not a specific objective, as the focus is on internal use, not external reporting.  The agency hopes to use ISO 14000 to identify situations where an EMA system could support an EMS.ISO 14000 will be used to generate economic and environmental benefits through faster adoption of EMA.
 

This project aims to strengthen and support R & D competence and projects.  Its goal is to promote structural change leading to eco-efficiency, innovation and socially sound development.

The project focuses on the following sustainability dimensions:

Efficiency of resource allocation;

Flexibility and adaptability in processes, products and services;

Sustainable economic development (at all levels); and

Enhanced quality of life.

In Australia, natural resource management is the main environmental problem, particularly in forestry, agriculture and mining.  Environmental business is not significant, but awareness and interest are increasing. Manufacturing continues to be the most important industry with respect to environmental concerns.

Australia is engaged in several activities relating to EMA, mostly with local governments and communities, and focusing on company environmental accounting and external reporting. The focus is on resource management rather than emissions.There has been limited use of EMA by public authorities, but there is growing interest.  The Victoria EPA has been providing assistance to local communities and businesses relating to EMA.

A government programme on "Industry and Environment: In transition from pollution control to more preventive strategies" focuses on making resource efficiency and other environmental measures core elements of business strategy.  An EMA toolkit is being developed to contribute to these goals.  A main focus of interest is currently on Materials Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA), which is being developed in cooperation with the Institut für Management und Umwelt (IMU) of Augsburg, Germany.  Future plans include guidelines for companies, information dissemination, and demonstrations of the benefits of EMA.

Reports by communities based on the section of Annual Reports on ecologically sound development are required by the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act of 1999.  On the voluntary side, the government encourages more and higher quality public reporting through the “Framework for Public Environmental Reporting”, published in March 2000.  Companies are required to report only if they have significant environmental impacts.

Environment Australia is planning two workshops which will emphasize win-win situations, focusing on the fact that most companies don't use resources efficiently.  Spreading the word on EMA is essentially a marketing issue, not only from the environmental point of view, but also economically.  Government must emphasize the role of EMA as a tool for internal company decision making.
 

The UK Environment Agency is currently developing EMA internally and promoting it externally.The focus is on linking accounting items and systems between financial accounting and environmental accounting, including natural resource values and pollution impacts.

The UK EPA is engaged in the following tasks:

Advising government on integrating environmental accounting into governmental financial planning and reporting;

Assessing environmental impacts and spending by industry to assess environmental and economic benefits;

Influencing company behavior, for example by promoting the use of environmental information by financial institutions to include environmental performance as a factor in lending policies; and

Producing green balance sheets for organizations.

The corporate social culture is an important factor in environmental performance.  All businesses and stakeholders should be involved, including banks, insurance companies and SMEs, green mutual funds and public pension funds. There is a need for harmonization in Europe through the development of technical standards for EMA.
 

Requirements for information disclosure and other environmental systems, such as EMS, have been recently introduced in China, but there are no requirements for EMA.  The mandatory reporting system in China operates through pollution permitting.  Pollution is reported based on the medium (air, water, soil, and noise), but applies only to major pollutants in key regions and polluting sources.

Voluntary reports have been published since EMS certification began in 1996.In China there are 15 certification institutes and 300 enterprises with ISO 14001 certification.  The main obstacles to ISO 14001 certification are:  (i) poor environmental management awareness; (ii) low technological level and (iii) inadequate public policies and regulations.

Cleaner production audits were introduced in 1993 and promoted by means of in-plant demonstrations, training, policy studies and advice as well as information dissemination and institutional capacity building.However, there are few market forces supporting cleaner production, limiting the results of CP audits.
 

The Environment Agency of Japan (EAJ) published an Environmental Accounting Guideline and case studies in May 2000.  The Guideline will be available soon through the Internet. The Guideline is intended primarily for public reporting.

The EAJ guidelines include:

1.The nature of an environmental accounting system:

§Use of the system for internal management and external communication;

§Integration of financial and environmental performance; and

§Integration of monetary and physical measures.

§Identification of investment costs and value of environmental conservation;

§Separating environmental costs from other costs; and

§Definition, measurement and classification of environmental costs.

This form of classification by business activity, upstream-downstream, management activity, social activity, environmental damage costs, social costs, and R & D costs, is useful for comparing environmental effects between activities and businesses.

The EAJ has several future priorities:

§Development of a new index based on environmental accounting;

§Development of an environmental accounting system; and

§Definition of linkages between social policy and environmental accounting.

DISCUSSION PAPER NO.1

The aim of the study is to provide a base for discussion and development of national EMA guidelines by defining principles and procedures for EMA and identifying techniques for quantifying environmental costs.

There is a need for a clear definition of EMA, combining accounting information with information on material flows, including material accounting, material flow analysis, input/output analysis, at a site, corporate, regional or national level.  Environmental managers know the physical flows, particularly of waste, while accountants know the cost figures, but the two information systems are generally incompatible.  Production managers often don’t know how much of their material input ends up as waste.

In bringing together financial and environmental information, two different languages need to be combined.  Then the accounting managers and the environmental managers can put their data together.  Benchmarking is practically impossible currently, in the absence of standardization, at least within sectors.  Standardization would include definition of indicators for each sector.

Input/output analysis in a furniture company in Austria showed that they had a lot of waste from cutting and that they had optimized only time through their normal management process.  The analysis revealed inefficiencies that could be improved.  80% of the savings from waste reduction were savings in material purchase costs.  While environmental costs are conventionally defined to include primarily end-of-pipe costs, the emphasis in EMA systems should be on input figures and efficiency calculations.

EMA is generally more cost-effective for large enterprises, as the time and cost of setting up a system are similar for large and small enterprises.  Nonetheless, the larger the enterprise the more complicated the accounting system and the more difficult the conversion to EMA.  Measurement of material flows and costs of materials will vary based on the methodology.Some companies use internal prices for materials, while others use actual storage value.

To promote a consistent approach to EMA, profit and loss accounts should be harmonized and standardized.  To establish the principles and scope of EMA, we must identify the processes by which companies make decisions, and link the EMA system to the information used for decision-making.  In this study, only a broad framework will be suggested.  We must allow flexibility for different applications and situations, perhaps with details introduced through case studies.

The guidelines will be based on material flows and activity-based cost analysis, while deriving environmental costs from accounting information.  The first step towards gathering the required information is to undertake an input/output analysis to determine what information is needed.
 

DISCUSSION PAPER NO.2

Three levels of analysis were proposed:

§International organisations and national governments;

§Local and regional governments; and

§Companies.

The goals and the information needed for the different levels or functions are quite different.  While EMA is primarily an internal management tool for companies, it may also serve to improve information flows from companies to other levels of decision-making.

The paper will define what environmental accounting (EA) is to the different levels of decision-making and whether corporate EMA is compatible with these definitions.  Until now, environmental accounting has generally been taken to cover only material flows, but new approaches are making closer linkages between production processes and financial accounting methods, integrating both monetary and ecological measures.  Ecological (material) accounting is a complement to conventional (monetary) accounting.

Consideration will also be given to the roles of various stakeholders, such as rating agencies, NGOs and customers. Participants decided to use the list of stakeholders proposed by Prof. Schaltegger.  The study would not examine links between different levels within an enterprise, i.e. production level and top management, but only links between the enterprise and other public and private bodies.

Mr. Schaltegger suggested a preliminary environmental accounting model. Based on the discussions, the following model of environmental accounting, with new definitions, was agreed:

Figure 1.  Environmental Accounting model.

The linkages study will assume that governments have the choice of promoting EMA either through voluntary schemes or through mandatory reporting.In examining the links between EMA and other levels of decision-making, the study will not favor either of these two approaches, but will leave such policy choices to governments. Governments can use the general guidelines to develop more specific guidelines tailored to national conditions and to government objectives with respect to EMA, be it to promote better decision making at the management level or to provide better information to government and other decision-makers. 
 

DISCUSSION PAPER NO.3

Policy approaches were divided in four categories:

§Informational Policy Instruments (newsletters, software, training, etc.);

§Self-regulatory Policy Instruments (working with ISO, EMAS, GRI, accounting associations, banks and other financial and industrial organizations to promote EMA);

§Incentive-based Policy Instruments (taxes, low interest loans, technical assistance); and

§Direct-Regulatory Policy Instruments (e.g. requiring EMA for business licensing).

In examining policy options, a number of questions need to be considered.  Should the Working Group make policy recommendations, or merely offer a list of possible options?  Should the emphasis be on short-term or long-term results?Should there be an emphasis on developed or developing countries, on large corporations or SMEs?  The Working Group agreed that all of these issues needed to be considered.

An examination of policies for promoting EMA must consider the relation of EMA to financial accounting and reporting, and the degree to which financial accounting requirements are an incentive for EMA.  The extent to which financial institutions, including banks, stock markets and insurance companies, take account of environmental impacts needs to be considered.  The study will consider policies for promoting EMA through such indirect effects as will as direct approaches.

The following elements were suggested for the policy study:

§Review of government EMA policies and programmes;

§Related activities, including environmental management systems (EMS), corporate environmental reports (CER), and cleaner production programmes;

§List of policy options;

§Evaluation of policies for promoting EMA in SMEs;

§Needs and opportunities for developed vs. developing countries;

§Policy options for different levels of government;

§Coordinating the policy study and the linkages study; and

§Regulatory vs. voluntary approaches.

TECHNICAL PRESENTATIONS

In 1975, work at IMU started addressing end-of-pipe measures for environmental protection.  At the time, such measures were taken as the only environmental expenses.  As environmental protection came to be integrated into production planning and management, the problem was how to separate environmental costs from other investment and operating costs.  Work was undertaken on material flows, since improvements in this area could provide both economic and environmental benefits.

IMU has evolved from an Eco-Balance approach to Material Flow Cost Accounting, focusing on material flow measurement, input/output analysis, indicator development, standardisation of methods, and benchmarking based both on physical and monetary measures.

Conventional financial accounting systems for external reporting do not allow an assessment of environmental costs and do not show the increasing costs of waste.  With Material Flow Cost Accounting, various environmental costs are categorized, including end-of-pipe treatment, process improvements, and purchase costs of materials disposed of as waste.  A flow model is then used to show the material flows through the production process, from supplier to customer or disposal.  The approach transforms ecological data in physical terms into financial terms.

The direct benefits of this approach are material efficiency, improved process management, inter-departmental coordination, and higher employee motivation.There is, however, a need to adjust the organization's information and management systems and production processes.  Environmental risks are another element of EMA.  The costs of environmental risks include both the intangible costs of a poor corporate image, as well as the tangible costs of higher insurance costs and legal fees.

Currently, there is no process for standardizing material cost flow accounting.  There are many people addressing the issue in different accounting and regulatory environments, and material flow costs are calculated in many different ways.  Procedures for calculating the material, process and disposal costs are needed.  Indicators for benchmarking for the financial sector are also needed.

Material Flow Cost Accounting is a form of management accounting; it does not cover external costs or reporting requirements.
 

Environmental accounting (EA) involves the following disciplines: accounting, environmental protection, industrial production and business management.  EA can be used both for tracking environmental change and for assessing corporate environmental performance.

Information technologies are re-enforcing the trend towards EA.  The growing importance of EA reflects pressure on national governments to provide information to civil society, and the trend toward greater local government responsibility for environmental management, including environmental fees and fines, which promote the use of EMA.
 

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is interested in improving standards for financial disclosure, reliability and comparability of financial reports.  In 1972, work by international experts led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR).

ISAR's activities include:

§Review of developments in the field of international accounting and reporting; including the work of standard-setting bodies; and

§Establishing priorities for work, taking into account the needs of countries, particularly developing countries.

ISAR's guidelines for environmental accounting describe environmental assets and liabilities in broad, non-technical terms.  ISAR’s standards are comparable to those in ISO 14000.  ISAR’s efforts to promote environmental accounting concentrate on voluntary commitments rather than mandatory requirements.  Standards for environmental accounting need to take into account the different requirements for international standards for public reporting and for stock exchange listings.
 

Examination of the links between EMA and other decision-making processes should focus on:

Statistical value of the information. From this perspective, a bottom-up approach is best, starting from the level at which the basic information is gathered; and

Political impact of the information. From this perspective, a top-down approach is best, focusing on the level at which aggregate information is used for policy-making.

To address this problem with respect to national accounts, a System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) was developed by the United Nations as part of the implementation of Agenda 21.  The SEEA transformed indicators from other accounting systems, including both physical and monetary measures.  Integrating environmental and economic accounting requires not only changes in conceptual frameworks and institutional procedures, but also the conceptualization of integrated environmental approaches (micro/macro) and the development of practical software programmes.
 

EMAN was established in 1997 as part of the European Commission's eco-management accounting (ECOMAC) project.  The purpose of EMAN is to facilitate contacts between people interested in EMA issues.EMAN now includes over 100 members from industry, government, non-profit organizations and research institutions, and aims to create contacts and links with other networks through annual conferences, proceedings and a website.

The first EMAN conference was held at the Wuppertal Institute in 1999 with the theme of "EMA: The role of information systems".  The second conference was at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, in 2000 and addressed "EMA and organisational changes".  The third conference will be held in 2001 and will deal with "EMA: Government policy issues".
 

FUTURE WORK

§The three working papers (on metrics, linkages and policies) will be prepared based on the discussions at the meeting and continuing consultation among the drafters. 

§The papers will be sent to all members of the Expert Working Group for review prior to the next meeting, to be held in Bonn, Germany, 1-3 November 2000, and will be discussed at that meeting.

§The three papers will then be revised for publication as a single volume by the United Nations in April 2001.  The publication will be submitted to the 2001 session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, under the theme of “information for decision-making”, and will be available for general dissemination in printed form and via the Internet.

At the end of the meeting, government participants discussed the future of the Expert Working Group following completion of the current work programme and publication of the results.  The participants agreed to consult with their agencies and consider the questions of resources, issues and organization and to discuss future work at the next meeting.