1. Environmental and sustainability management accounting
Project: E-MF-Sust-MA Transfer Project: ISO-Norm Material flow cost accounting Project: UNIDO COMFAR TOOL Project: EMA Micro-Macro-Link Project: TRIGOS - CSR pays!
Project: IFAC Guidance document on environmental management accounting Project: Implementation of the IFAC guidance document on EMA Dansico Project: Sustainability Management Accounting for the Styrian automobile cluster AC Styria Project: EMA Pilottesting and Casestudies Project: UN DSD EMA Workbook on Principles and Procedures Project: EMA Pilotproject in Costa Rica Project: EMA Pilot Project
in the Basque Country
Project: Development
of a methodology for integration of environmental costs into
management accounting Projects: Environmental information and controlling systems
Project: E-MF-Sust-MA Transfer – Environmental, Material Flow and Sustainability Management Accounting – Transfer into Education and long life learningThe goal of the project is diffusion of the FdZ project line on environmental and material flow cost accounting (EMA and MFCA) for corporate and national system boundaries, as well as related tools for sustainability accounting in existing post graduate studies. The lectures and seminars focus on EMA and MFCA, but in addition include national environmental accouting and related environmental policy instruments as well as further assessment approaches for the social pillow of sustainability management, e.g. sustainability performance indicators and reporting, sustainability balanced scorecards, knowledge based assets, monetarization of external effects and intangible assets.
Presentation material and case studies will be developed therefore. The seminars and lectures to be held in 2009 will have a modular setting, which will be discussed in detail with the organisers and fine tuned according to the specific target groups. The seminars thus have a different structure, emphasis and duration. Most of them are established as post graduate studies, which means direct access to the companies, where the participants are employed. At the FH Joanneum assessment projects at the companies, where the students are based, are part of the project. The project integrates the results of 12 FdZ projects as well as further projects financed by BM VIT or UNIDO. In addition about 50 company case studies have been performed in Austria, Denmark, France, Rumania, Spain, USA and Costa Rica, which will be included in the results and case studies.
The results of the project are:
Project management: Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung, IÖW, Univ.Doz.Mag.Dr. Christine Jasch
Project partners:
Project duration: March 2009 – February 2010
Project finance: Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie, Factory of Tomorrow
Project: International standard for Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA)ISO TC 207 WG 8 is currently developing a guidance document on MFCA, which is based on the UN DSD and the IFAC EMA guidelines.
Dr. Christine Jasch is the Austrian delegate to this ISO group. More information: www.iso.org
UNIDO-Project: Performing Environmental Management and Material Flow Cost Accounting (EMA + MFCA) - Addition to the COMFAR III Expert Tutorial and Reference Manuals - UNIDO COMFAR III EMA ModuleWithin the project a separate project type in the UNIDO COMFAR tool for investment appraisal for Environmental Management and Material Flow Cost Accounting on the company level was installed, which allows a more detailed structure for the calculation of production costs.
The focus of the COMFAR III EMA module is to allow data assessment of material flows and fates and related costs for the previous business year based on the UN DSD and IFAC EMA methodology. Once the data has been assessed on a company level, it can be distributed to cost centers, reflecting production processes, and thereby providing a much better basis for the application of the already existing investment appraisal tool COMFAR III. The quality of the COMFAR tool depends on the quality of the data used for the investment appraisal. The EMA tool provides a sound instrument to improve this data quality significantly. It is based on an assessment of total annual environmental and material flow costs of the previous business year.
Project management: Elisa Tonda und Robert Novak, UNIDO, Christine Jasch, IOEW
Project duration: October 2007 –Juni 2008
Project: EMA Micro-Macro-Link Harmonisation of disclosure reqirements of statistical agencies regarding material and energy consumption, environmental investments and expenditure with the IFAC guidance document on environmental management accounting and the GRI guideline on sustainability reporting and performance indicators.
In 2005 a guidance document on Environmental Management Accounting, EMA; was developed for IFAC, the International Federation of Accountants in New York. It is based on a publication on principles and procedures for EMA, which was written for the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, UN DSD. Both documents were funded within the research framework of the Factory of Tomorrow.
In the last years both documents have been applied in several case studies, with the focus of developing internal procedures and standards for data collection and disclosure. They have produced recommendations for a further harmonisation of definitions and requirements for data collection and reporting.
According to the definition of UN DSD, two types of information are considered under EMA: physical and monetary information. Physical information includes data on the use, flows and final destiny of energy, water, materials and wastes. EMA places a particular emphasis on physical information because (1) the use of energy, water and materials, as well as the generation of waste and emissions, are directly related to many of the environmental impacts of organizational operations and (2) materials purchase costs are a major cost driver in many organizations. Monetary information can include various types of environment-related costs, including materials-driven costs, environmental protection expenditures and others.
The Global Reporting Initiative, GRI, publishes guidelines for Sustainability Reporting and Performance Indicators. In its current version G3 from October 2006 the indicator Environmental Investments and Expenditure EN 30 explicitly references the UN DSD and the IFAC documents. The requirements for companies are thereby identical.
Following a request of the statistical division of UN DSD within the current project a review of definitions and reporting requirements of documents provided by the statistical division of UN DSD, Eurostat and selected national statistical agencies will be performed. The aim is to improve consistency of data requirements with the structure of financial accounting systems as well as with the definitions in the IFAC and GRI guidance documents. This will significantly support the design of harmonised corporate information systems and help provide consistent and comparable data on a micro and macro level.
Improved and harmonised data quality is essential for corporations as well as for aggregated statistical analysis, as they provide the ground for several decisions, from investment choices to scientific projects and political instruments and allow better benchmarking. In addition, the time needed for data assessments and aggregations can be reduced significantly, as well for corporations as for statistical agencies. The better harmonization of definitions and data requirements for disclosure regarding environmental management accounting is therefore in the core interest of organizations as well as statistical agencies.
Project duration
1. 12.2007 – 30.11.2009
Project coordinator
Univ.-Doz. Mag. Dr. Christine Jasch
Institut für Ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung
Project: TRIGOS - CSR pays!Environmental protection and management have proved to be environmentally as well as economically beneficial, especially when combined with integrated prevention technologies and material flow costing. But for social projects and corporate responsibility, there is no clear win-win-situation. Many organisations are reluctant to openly account for, or even disclose, voluntary social activities for employees and the local community, in fear they will be stopped in order to save operational costs.
There are also other tendencies. The dialogue initiated by the European Commission on „Corporate Social Responsibility“ (CSR) and increased demand for social, ethical and environmental investment options have made corporate social responsibility an issue at least for companies listed on stock exchange.
The project analysed and developed assessment tools for sustainable management accounting in organisations, who have already set such initiatives, received an award for specific projects and thus believe in the positive effects of responsible behaviour, even thought the monetary effects and cost/benefits had not been calculated. This is what the current project did on the basis of selected case studies.
TRIGOS is an award scheme for organisations that combine economic performance with social and environmental responsibility. It is organised by the Austrian Red Cross, the Caritas, SOS-Kinderdorf, the WWF, die Association of Industry, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and Humans.World. TRIGOS itself states, that corporate responsibility pays also in economic terms due to the increased trust into the values of an organisation.
The FdZ-Project clustered the 150 applications and 18 award receivers for TRIGOS 2005 and 2006 by their activities taken and calculated the internal and external (monetary) effects of selected projects. To the degree possible, the results were monetised. Immaterial values and benefits, risk aspects and external effects were at least qualitatively described and assessed by a cost-benefit-analysis. The project serves as scientific baseline for the development of assessment tools for corporate sustainable accounting.
A questionnaire on motivation, effects, costs and benefits of the TRIGOS project and the generell CSR-orientation has been sent to all applicants for TRIGOS. It was followed by telefone interviews with the companies. In about 30 companies more detailed costs and specific indicators were discussed to at least partly monetise their CSR effects.
In addition, an excel tool for the assessment of the costs of fluctuation and costs and benefit of activities to improve the work life balance of employees has been developed and applied in some companies.
All this resulted in an overview on how corporations see the benefits of CSR, how they implement their activities and relate them to their overall strategy and in an assessment of costs and benefits of selected projects. Different tools, indicators and approaches to assess CSR effects were discussed and tested.
The value of the project for demonstration, dissemination and follow up is great, on a national as well as on an international level. As it was able to show in recent years, that not environmental protection is expensive, but neglecting environmental protection becomes expensive, likewise the projects aims to provide the methodological ground as well as Austrian case studies to show that a similar win-win-situation exists for corporate social responsibility.
Project coordinator
Univ.Doz.Mag.Dr. Christine Jasch, Institute for environmental management and
economics
Cooperating partners
respACT austria – Verein zur Förderung gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung
in Unternehmen
TRIGOS – Informationsbüro, www.trigos.at
Industriellenvereinigung
Caritas
Project duration
April 1st 2006 till April 30st 2007
Publications:
The project report is available only in German.
| A Project within the framework
of the programme "Company of tomorrow" of the ministry of transport,
innovation and technology.
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Project: IFAC Guidance document on environmental management accounting Recognizing the increasing importance of environmental issues and the difficulty of managing these issues, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has issued new guidance on environmental management accounting (EMA). The document, commissioned by IFAC and supported by the Division for Sustainable Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DSD/UNDESA), was written by Deborah Savage of the Environmental Management Accounting Research and Information Center and Christine Jasch of the Austrian Institute for Environmental Management & Economics.
Although the guidance is aimed primarily at professional accountants within organizations, it will also be of interest to professional accountants and auditors who are becoming more involved in tracking or verifying environment-related information in financial and other reports.
"Our goal in issuing this document is to reduce confusion on this important topic and to provide a framework and set of definitions that is comprehensive, yet as consistent as possible with other existing environmental accounting frameworks with which EMA must coexist," says IFAC President Graham Ward. "We believe this document will achieve this goal."
Tarcisio Alvarez-Rivero of UNDESA observes: "We are delighted to have been involved in developing this international guidance. We are pleased to see that it is already being applied in various countries and hope it will become accepted global best practice in the months ahead."
The work of actually drafting the guidance document and adopting it according the extensive review comments was co-funded by the Austrian ministry for transport, innovation and technology. They also had the document translated into German by one of the authors. For the assessment of annual environmental costs following the scheme developed for IFAC, an assessment tool in EXCEL was developed, which is available in German and English
The International Guidance Document on Environmental Management Accounting may be downloaded free-of-charge from IFAC's online bookstore by going to http://www.ifac.org/store . Print copies are available for US $25.00 plus shipping and may also be ordered through the online bookstore or by calling +1 (212) 286-9344 or download PDF
The German translation has been published in print by the Austrian ministry for transport, innovation and technology. It is also available for download.
For the assessment of environmental management costs according the IFAC scheme there is a tool available for download in excel.
Project: Implementation of the IFAC guidance document on EMA in Danisco The first company to apply the IFAC guidance document on EMA was Danisco, the Danish sugar corproation. In 2005 on several sites worldwide assessments of last years total environmental and material flow costs were performed. The tool and the experiences were used to shape the corporate wide information and reporting system.
Project: What does Sustainability mean for the Automobil Cluster Acstyria? The project comprises the definition of sustainability requirements, qualification requirements, implementation and developing a sustainability report for the cluster emphasising the monetarisation of the effects of sustainable development to the degree possible.
| Project Leader: | ACstyria AutoclusterGmbH, Grambach/Graz, www.acstyria.com | |
| Project Partners: |
IÖW, Institute for Environmental Management and Economics, Vienna, www.ioew.at |
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| Project duration: | 1.1.2003 – 13.12.2004 |
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A Project within the framework of the programme "Company of tomorrow" of the ministry of transport, innovation and technology.
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This project aims to specify the requirements of sustainable development for the Styrian automobile cluster and their industrial partners.
With increasing globalisation, multinational businesses obtain more duties and responsibilities, especially concerning social and ethical aspects. Simultaneously, the pressure of the sustainability agenda is mounting.
Recently there has been a substantial increase in mobility. Transportation is one of the fastest growing markets worldwide. Demands to shape this industry following sustainable criteria are increasing. At the same time, the automobile industry is experiencing a global change. The technology and sustainability requirements imposed on auto corporations and their suppliers are constantly growing. Among European pension funds and other investment funds, there are rising interests in the ethical and environmental performance of companies. All these factors cause sustainable reporting to be a priority among rating agencies.
Sustainable development is comprised of three dimensions: environment, social, and economic. These three dimensions are not separate however, if there is to be a realisation of this type of development among companies. For companies to have an interest in sustainable development there needs to be an expected financial benefit.
The Triple Bottom Line approach usually lists the three dimensions individually. The Global Reporting Initiative, GRI, lists the indicators for the three dimensions, but also lists "integrated indicators” in an attempt to combine the single dimensions. They, however, do not give any instructions on how to do this. GRI differentiates between:
Sustainable accounting aims to develop methods for these kinds of integrated approaches and implement them in pilot projects.
In 10-one day workshops, 10 companies of the automobile cluster will participate in providing and evaluating their sustainability costs using a procedure that is based on the UN DSD method of environmental- and material flow cost accounting. Further companies can participate given that they pay.
The collected data will not be publicly disclosed, unless the company wants to integrate them in their sustainability reports. Two companies, Verbund AG and SCA Laakirchen, already provide information on their environmental costs, sustainability effects, and related research studies in their sustainability reports.
The development of methods to account for existing social and environmental costs provides companies with an instrument that shows that these costs are vital factors in executive decision making. This allows companies to use sustainability measures to increase their company value resulting in securing the companies’ future.
Factors that result in business costs should also be evaluated with corresponding costs. However, the information is not always readily available. The gap between business costs and macroeconomic costs is decreasing with the increased use of environmental tools as can be seen with the recent implementation of carbon trading. In collaboration with the participating companies, this project aims to develop valuation methods for the effects of sustainability in their value chain.
The companies will develop a comprehensive sustainability report of the cluster on the basis of the results of the workshops and the developed method of sustainability accounting. The goal is to present the entire cluster as a single entity in terms of their sustainability profile. The individual companies can then develop their own sustainability report based on the standardised format.
Sustainability reports have become a substantial medium of communication. These are evaluated by rating agencies and other organisations. Every year, the Chamber of certified accountants of every European country, awards a prize to the best sustainability report. These then compete on the European level in the European Sustainability Reporting Award. Unfortunately, Austria has not produced any good examples yet.
This project should enable the members of the automobile cluster to develop internationally comparable sustainability reports of highest quality, to be submitted to the Austrian Sustainability Reporting Award in September 2004.
The most important results for further dissemination are:
Project: EMA Pilottesting and CasesstudiesEnvironmental Management Accounting – Pilottesting and Casestudies
November 1st 2001 till October 31st 2002
The project was funded by the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology within the framework program "Company of tomorrow”.
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Univ. Doz. Mag. Dr. Christine Jasch
Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung
1040 Wien, Rechte Wienzeile 19/5
Tel.:01/5872189, Fax: 01/5870971
e-mail: info@ioew.at
www.ioew.at
Univ. Prof. DI Dr. Hans Schnitzer, Institut. f. Verfahrenstechnik, TU Graz
DI Karin Taferner, Joanneum Research, Graz
Alexander Lavicka, IÖW
Mag. Ulrike Schöflinger, planB Werbeagentur, Wien
- Motivation
In late 1999, the UN Commission for Sustainable Development installed an expert group on environmental management accounting (EMA). For this group, Christine Jasch wrote a book on procedures and metrics for EMA, which was commissioned by the Austrian ministry of transport, innovation and technology (BM VIT), the Austrian ministry of agriculture, forestry, environmental and water management (BM LFUW) and the Austrian chamber of commerce (BWK) and can be downloaded at www.un.org/esa/sustdev/estema1.htm or www.ioew.at.
On of the backgrounds for the strong interest in EMA is the growing demand for integrated consideration of financial and physical aspects of environmental management. The concept of sustainable development in addition requires a combined consideration of financial, environmental and social aspects. International rating agencies and award systems for environmental and sustainability reporting also put a strong focus on disclosure of financial aspects in environmental reports
- Content
In addition to this international networking, within the project described, a series of national pilot projects have been performed. Results for the companies included:
Focus of the pilot projects has not been in depth assessment of total environmental cost, but critical review of existing information systems in order to improve the decision basis for material flow management and investment decisions. The company data remain secret, it is up to the company if and to what degree to communicate externally in the environmental report or other media.
- Project aim
This selection of case studies will, together with the EMA methodological book published by the UN DSD and the Austrian BM VIT, provide the basis for a national research programme on EMA. It will be used for dissemination among companies and consultants and for training purposes.
- Methodology
In each company, one or two workshops have been held. The assessment of the environmental costs and the environmental information system was carried out by Dr. Christine Jasch (IÖW) and Hr. Dr. Hans Schnitzer (TU-Graz) and documented by Karin Taferner (JOANNEUM RESEARCH). The company team consisted of at least the environmental manager and the controller/accountant. We were trying to work mostly with companies with existing environmental management systems, as their awareness and data availability is high.
- Data
The following aspects have been assessed in the workshops:
All company projects have be compiled and described on the basis of existing data records, balance sheets, lists of accounts, cost centre reports, list of assets etc. Each company example has been transformed into a neutralised description, that allows recalculation of costs from scratch. That way, many toolkits for cost calculation, accounting and preparing a balance sheet are structured, but there is no likely publication in the environmental field.
A toolkit for environmental management accounting, structured that way, will allow environmental managers as well as accountants and controllers to actually trace the relevant costs in different records (which is, what they would have to do in the company as well), to calculate total annual environmental costs and the costs of an investment example, and to compare their solution to the solution provided by the research team with some further remarks in the annex. Each company has been given opportunity to approve the description of their case for publication.
- Results
Each pilot project has been transferred into case study for recalculation, that describes
The case studies are part of the toolkit, that describes the methodology and also general results and recommendations. The project results are available in German in print and on CD-Rom via www.forschungsforum.at or projektfabrik@nextra.at and for download on the IÖW homepage www.ioew.at . The results have also be reported at the UN DSD expert working group on EMA.
- Conclusion
It turned out that the methodology can be very well applied in the companies as the annual assessment can be performed in about 1 to 2 days. The workshops produced recommendations for improvement of the information systems (cost accounting, material flow recording) but also for improving the efficiency of material conversion into products. The environmental costs exceeded the amounts estimated by the companies by a factor 10 to 30! All companies intend to continue with the tool and the annual assessment.
Publication:
Jasch Chr., Schnitzer H., Umweltrechnungswesen - Wir zeigen, wie sich Umweltschutz rechnet. Beispielsammlung
zur Umweltkostenrechnung und Investitionsrechnung; im Rahmen des Förderungsprogramms „Fabrik der Zukunft“ des Bundesministeriums für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie unter Mitfinanzierung des Bundesministeriums für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft, Wien, Oktober 2002, to order at www.forschungsforum.at or projektfabrik@nextra.at or download the METHODOLOGY english version here.
Project: UN DSD Workbook on Principles and Procedure The Expert Working Group on Improving Government’s Role in the Promotion of Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) was organized as a follow up to informal discussions on the issue at the 1998 session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in the context of negotiations on environmentally sound technologies. Those discussions indicated that a number of governments were involved or interested in promoting EMA, but that there had been little or no communication between the agencies concerned.
The participants in the Expert Working Group are from national environment agencies and ministries, international organizations, industry, accounting firms, academia, and United Nations agencies, as well as from the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development. To date the group includes participants from government agencies in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and Zimbabwe. The publication on "Environmental Management Accounting: Procedures and Principles”, the first of a series of publications by the Expert Working Group, presents the terminology and techniques as used by members of the group in order to establish a common understanding of the basic concepts of EMA and provide a set of principles and procedures to guide those interested in its application. It was commissioned by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Environment and the Chamber of Commerce.
This publication is intended for government agencies, industry management, accounting professionals and all others concerned with the application and benefits of EMA. A second publication will focuses on government policies for promoting EMA. The value of EMA in establishing a culture of pollution prevention and waste minimization within industry is clear. However, the success of government and corporate programmes to promote EMA depends on developing EMA systems that are cost-effective for industry.
This publication is intended to minimize the cost of introducing EMA systems by offering a set of principles and procedures for EMA based on commonly used and internationally accepted financial accounting methods. While the approach to EMA presented in this publication is not the only way, it is one which the members of the Group, after extensive consultation, agree to be sound and cost-effective.
Project: EMA Pilotproject Costa Rica
Duration: November 2002
Project Coordination: Cegesti, Costa Rica
Project Partners: Christine Jasch, IÖW
Company Participants:
CooproNaranjo
ETIPRES
PIPASA
RESINTECH
ROMA PRINCE
Content of the project:
In September 2001 the Costa Rican NGO CEGESTI initiated this project, which has been financed by CEGESTI and the Dutch Development Cooperation Organization ICCO. The objective was to improve the access for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) to technical assistance during the implementation process of environmental and quality management systems based on the ISO standards. In order to be able to maintain their competitive position, they require appropriate technical assistance to support them to increase their managerial capacity and their possibility to continuously adapt to a changing environment.
The need to create and offer tools for EMA to Costa Rican SME has always existed but has grown in importance due to the increasing number of environmental legislation, efforts local government has made to reach legal compliance, and, last but not least, the economic crises that affect the region. The economic activities in the Central American region are mostly related to agricultural and service activities. These sectors are affected by the growth in supply of agricultural products at a global level, which has caused a reduction in world market prices. A better insight in the costs related to activities becomes more and more important in order to be able to identify opportunities to decrease them. EMA helps decision makers to identify not only the basic costs of their activities but also the environmental costs and potentials for improved material efficiency.
The objectives of the project in Costa Rica were thus:
• Understand and learn the methodology of EMA through real life application.
• Assess the applicability of the tool in the Costa Rican context in general and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises specifically.
• Define required adjustments for its implementation to be able to use the method in a Latin American context.
• Determine an accounting tool that can complement and support the adequate implementation of Environmental Management Systems (e.g. those based on ISO 14001).
In November 2002 the train the trainer program was performed, following the approach developed for the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, Working Group on Environmental Management Accounting. The visit of Dr. Christine Jasch to Costa Rica took place during the period November 8-22, 2002. The first part of her visit consisted of a half-day lecture on EMA and the UN DSD methodology. This lecture was meant for common public, in total 61 people participated. This lecture was followed by another half day used for a preparatory workshop in which just personnel of the 5 SME participated. These SME were selected as the pilot group, to train CEGESTI consultants on applying the UN DSD methodology in a Costa Rican business context. The training was followed by a one day site visit to each of the selected companies. Thorough the period, the expert and involved CEGESTI consultants got together various times to share doubts, analyse the results thoroughly, and share the lessons learned.
During the open lecture the following issues were discussed:
• What are environmental costs of production and how can they be reduced?
• Environmental costs in normal accounting practices
• Definition of environmental costs & cost categories
• How to determine and calculate environmental costs
• Assessing prevention and cost reduction potentials
• Checklists for site assessments
• Linking mass balances to financial accounts and cost calculation
• Defining environmental performance indicators
After the workshop, the participants were able to identify in a practical way the costs and benefits of the environmental management practices used in a company. They learned the basics of linking accounting and cost calculation to material flow analysis, mass balancing, using checklists and other assessment tools, which help to define environmental costs and saving potentials. The workshop took place in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish.
The 4-hour workshop in the afternoon was only open for the 5 companies selected for the site visits and the CEGESTI consultants to be trained. The selection criteria of the companies, was based on the level of awareness of environmental management issues, size and availability or not of a environmental management system. This means that all the companies should have a reasonable level of interest in environmental management issues and have implemented a number of related improvements. Three of these companies already counted with environmental management systems based on ISO 14001, two with a quality management system based on ISO 9002: 1994, and one had just started identifying its environmental management strategy.
After the workshop Dr. Christine Jasch and three CEGESTI consultants visited during a period of 6 days the 5 selected SME. The companies selected were: ETIPRES, a sticker producing company, RESINTECH, a plastic pallets producing company, CooproNaranjo, a coffee co-operative, PIPASA, a chicken products company and ROMA PRINCE, a pasta producing company. The objective of the visits was two-fold. First, to analyse the cost accounting system available, and to apply the US DSD methodology to the companies' situation. Second, to give in-company training to the environmental manager, the controlling department and the involved CEGESTI consultants, by applying the tool in practice and analysing the results obtained with the participants.
In each company an assessment was done of the environmental costs and the technical and financial information system. This was carried out by some representatives of the organisation under the guidance of Mrs. Christine Jasch. The results were documented by a CEGESTI consultant. The company team consisted of at least the general manager, the environmental/operational manager and the controller/accountant. Each company received a protocol of all issues raised and the excel file with the assessment of total annual environmental costs of the last business year.
The workshop and the site visits created in each company the basic skills required to apply the EMA methodology, for them to repeat the exercise in future years. Besides this, it increased the awareness of the higher management of the environmental costs generated by inefficiencies in the production processes, waste generation and bad functioning equipment. The direct relation between the accounting system and the material flows of the production site, improved knowledge on the information necessities, and the willingness of management to invest in environmental management, cleaner production and cost accounting tools.
Jasch Ch., Danse M., Environmental Management Accounting pilot projects in Costa Rica, in Bennet M., Rikhardson P., Schaltegger S. (Eds.) Implementing Environmental Management Accounting: Status and Challenges, Kluwer Academic Publ. , Dordrecht, NL, 2005
Project: EMA Pilot Project in the Basque Country
Titel of the project
Technical assessment and methodology transfer to the environmental management
accounting pilot project of IHOBE
Duration
April to December 2003
The project was commissioned by IHOBE and administered by Mari Luz Gomez.
Project coordination:
Dr. Christine Jasch, IÖW-Institute for Environmental Management and Economics
Project partners:
Fidel Alonso, Sayma
Marcelo Ausin, Dataudit 200 S.L.
Rafael Sagarduy Careaga, Idom
Roberto Perez Diez, Sayma
Imanol Martin Landa, Limia & Martin S.L.
Ricardo Celada Ramos, Mazars Auditores
Participating companies:
ACB Grupo Arcelor
Fuchosa S.A.
Fundiciones del Estanda S.A.
ITP, Industria de Turbo Propulsores S.A.
Nervacero S.A.
Content of the project:
Within the project, the UN DSD methodology for EMA
was applied to 5 companies by 6 national consultants who were coached by Christine
Jasch. Resultantly, the methodology was adapted to Spanish law and published
in a Spanish/Basque EMA manual.
Project: Development of a methodology for integration
of environmental costs into management accounting The term environmental costs is not defined on a clear basis. Depending on interests and institutions different costs are regarded, e. a. waste disposal or investment budgets. For this reason companies, but also public decision-makers miss common grounds for comparison of the costs for environmental management and measures for reduction of those efforts. The traditional companies accounting systems mostly don«t separate the costs that result from environmental management activities, but sum them up in general costs. There is no consistent methodology for the assessment of environmental costs for their evaluation and for their integration into traditional accounting systems. Many responsible environmental managers have a technical background and therefore don«t actually know which environmental activities actually result in what environmental costs and how they can be influenced.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/company/account/news/01-814.htm
www.un.org/esa/sustdev/estema1.htm
www.epa.gov/opptintr/acctg/earesources.htm
http://gemi.org/docs/PubTools.htm
Projects: Environmental information and controlling systems Environmental accounting system for Wiesner & Hager, office furniture company
In order to carry out environmental accounting both regularly and efficiently, the recording of data must be connected to existing information systems while minimising additional time requirements. To a large degree the scheme of the Input/Output analysis can be extracted from existing accounting and controlling systems. As the first three levels of balancing (balance of company, processes and products) are based on flow diagrams, the data from earnings, expense accounts, purchase. /material management, stock keeping and production planning have to be linked to each other. The project with Wiesner & Hager from September 1991 to April 1992 focused on linking the material flow analyses to the existing computer information systems.Environmental accounting system for Breweries
In June 1992 the Brau AG, together with the Institute for Ecological Research in Economics (IÖW), and the Austrian Institute for Energy Management (OIE), began to establish a brewery specific environmental information system. The goal of the project was to optimise waste and energy efficiency.
By carrying out this study in one brewery of this corporation, the Zipf Brewery, partial eco-balances were prepared. The procedure allowed standardised internal environmental performance evaluation and benchmarking with other breweries. The procedure followed the first two steps of the IÖW eco-balancing system, that of corporate balancing and process balancing.
Environmental accounting system Kapsch AG
The project from October 1992 to June 1993 followed the methodology applied at Wiesner and Hager with a focus on mass balancing of the numerous stock materials. On the basis of the massbalance for 1991 a continuos information system was installed.
Environmental accounting system IMMUNO AG
The project lasted from April 1993 to Februar 1993 and had a similar content as the Kapsch project.
D.A.C.H.
In 1992, on behalf of the ministry for science and research a project on the possible outline of a material information data bank was performed.
Waste Prevention plan for Vienna Businesses
The waste management law has been in effect since 1990, but in 1992 the companies concerned still knew too little about it. For this reason, the responsible Administration Department 48 of the City of Vienna and the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, decided to distribute a brochure concerning the law, which was prepared by the IÖW. The brochure has been distributed to all Vienna businesses with 30 or more employees. The first part of the brochure explains what firms must do in order to meet the requirements of waste management. The second part suggests further possibilities for environmental accounting and management.