Environmental costs at a Canadian paper mill: a case study of Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) |
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| Institution: | 1. University of Aveiro, Department of Environment and Planning, Portugal;2. University of Aveiro, Department of Biology, Campus Universitario de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal;1. School of Business and Administration, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, CICE-IPS – Centre for Research in Business Sciences, Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Portugal;2. School of Social Sciences, University of Évora, CEFAGE - Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics, Portugal;3. School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, CARME - Centre of Applied Research in Management and Economics, Portugal;1. Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, School of Biological Sciences, Jinan 250100, Shandong University, PR China;2. Department of Industrial System and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA;3. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China;1. University of Bergamo, Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods, Via de Caniana 2, Bergamo, 24127, Italy;2. University of Exeter, Business School, Accounting Discipline, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 3PU, UK;1. Department of Neurology, Hangzhou Third People''s Hospital, Zhejiang, China |
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| Abstract: | An Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) framework is applied to the 2000 year-end financial report for the Mackenzie Paper Division paper mill owned and operated by Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. of Montreal, Quebec. A conventional reading of the obvious environmental costs from this financial report is Cdn$2,196,838. This figure is derived from an analysis of effluent treatment costs and other line item environmental costs. There is no “environmental account” category that breaks out either costs or the mass balance of inputs and outputs. For the most part, environmental costs are rolled up into overhead accounts such as administration, infrastructure and materials accounts.Application of the EMA framework is based on assigning environmental costs to one of four categories for which a tentative breakdown is as follows: (1) waste and emission treatment costs ($3,348,902); (2) prevention and environmental management costs ($270,109); (3) material purchase value of non-product output costs ($946,799); and (4) processing costs of non-product output ($2 92,943). There is also a category called Environmental Revenues, of which none were reported. Conservative estimates thus place the total environmental costs at $4,858,753.What is significant about this result is that the environmental costs under EMA are at least twice as much as would normally be reported. This supports the view that environmental costs are much higher than generally considered and makes it clear that many important environmental costs as well as benefits are “hidden” in other accounts. More studies of a similar design are required to confirm the validity of the EMA methodology reported here. |
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