Green Accounting

Business Strategy and the Environment
Bus. Strat. Env. 13, 65–77 (2004)
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/bse.395

ENVIRONMENTAL
ACCOUNTING: AN ESSENTIAL
COMPONENT OF BUSINESS
STRATEGY
Mehenna Yakhou*1 and Vernon P. Dorweiler2
1
2

Georgia College and State University, USA
Michigan Technological University, USA

Environmental accounting is on an expansion path. With increasing social focus on the environment, accounting fills an expectation role, to measure environmental performance. The status of environmental awareness provides a dynamic for business reporting its environmental performance. Examining the integration of environmental policy with business policy is the focus of this research. The business firm’s strategy includes responding to capital and operating costs of pollution control equipment. This is caused by increasing public concerns over environmental issues, and by a recent government-led trend to incentive-based regulation. This paper describes the environmental component of the business strategy, producing the required performance reports and recognizing the multiple skills required to measure, compile and analyze the requisite data. Special
* Correspondence to: Dr. M. Yakhou, The J. Whitney Bunting
School of Business, Georgia College and State University,
Campus Box 15, Milledgeville, GA 31061-0490, USA.
E-mail: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

emphasis of the research is on generation of reports and their standards, for the range of business and regulatory purposes. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Received 18 October 2002
Revised 12 May 2003
Accepted 9 July 2003

INTRODUCTION nvironmental accounting is an inclusive field of accounting. It provides reports for both internal use, generating environmental information to help make management decisions on pricing,

References: Bartolomeo M et al. 2000. Environmental management accounting in Europe: current practice and future Bebbington J. 1997. A review essay on environmental accounting Dorweiler VP, Yakhou M. 2002. Dimensionality of environmental accounting. Journal of Accounting and Finance Research 9(4): 47–64. Fryxell GE, Vryza M. 1999. Managing environmental issues across multiple functions: an empirical study of Gallhofer S, Haslam J. 1997. The direction of green accounting policy: critical reflections Gibson K. 1997. Courses on environmental accounting. Grinnell DJ, Hunt HG. 2000. Development of an integrated course in accounting: focus on environmental issues Gulch P. 2000. Costs of environmental errors. Greener Management International Autumn 31: 23–36. Mathews MR. 1997. Twenty-five years of social and environmental accounting research. Accounting, Auditing, and Accountability Journal 10(4): 481–531. Medley P. 1997. Environmental accounting – what does it mean to professional accountants? Accounting, Auditing, and Accountability Journal 10(4): 594–600. Owen D, Lehman G. 2000, Social and environmental accounting: trends and directions for the future. Reynolds P, Reynolds MA. 2001. The vision process. Ohio CPA Journal 60(1): 14–20. Rondinelli D, Vastag G. 2000. The value of ISO 14001 environmental management systems Sutherland P. 2002. Corporate Governance, BP-Amoco Annual Report 2002; 28–29. Wycherley I. 1997. Environmental managers and accounting. Journal of Applied Management Studies 6(2): 169–184. Bus. Strat. Env. 13, 65–77 (2004) 77