Environmental management accounting as a reflexive modernization strategy in cleaner production

Abstract Understanding the material purchase value of wastes and emissions and related processing costs is the essential contribution of an Environmental Management Accounting methodology proposed by a United Nations expert working group organised through the Division for Sustainable Development (UNDSD). Tracing costs and benefits according to this UNDSD methodology, considered as a “reflexive” modernization strategy in this article, sheds new light on cleaner production initiatives for corporate sustainability. Information on the first category of costs, waste and emission treatment, is generally the most accurate. Information on the second category, prevention and environmental management costs, is more difficult to determine because this category overlaps with, or is confused with, the first category of costs. Data for the two novel and innovative cost categories of the material purchase value of waste and emissions and related processing costs are even harder to obtain. Frequently, the costs are either hidden in overhead accounts or are not recorded because they are not required in conventional accounting systems. The outcome is that companies, even though they may profess otherwise, have very little knowledge about their full environmental costs, cost saving opportunities, or how best to achieve cleaner production initiatives to promote corporate sustainability. A more systematic application of the UNDSD EMA methodology would provide a better record of costs and act as a catalyst in promoting cleaner production processes. This application inevitably requires “reflexive institutions” including “reflexive corporations”, that is, corporations with the capacity to examine the side effects of their operations as modernization rebounds upon them.