TY - CHAP

T1 - Materials and Energy Accounting

AU - Burritt, Roger

AU - Christ, Katherine

AU - Schaltegger, Stefan

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Jan Bebbington, Carlos Larrinaga, Brendan O’Dwyer, and Ian Thomson; individual chapters, the contributors.

PY - 2021/3/31

Y1 - 2021/3/31

N2 - Materials and energy accounting and reporting is a subset of environmental management accounting and reporting, which is a subset of sustainability accounting and reporting. Use and availability of materials and energy are of such high sustainability and economic relevance that specialised accounting has been developed to assist management in dealing with emissions and waste as well as the limited supply of natural resources. International standards, such as ISO 14051 Material Flow Coast Accounting and ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems, aim to improve awareness of the importance and the efficient use of materials and energy in business. Physical and monetary information about materials and energy use can then be provided to stakeholders for the purpose of accountability. Challenges include determining the role of accountants in this space and choosing between different standards available. A second challenge is that materials and energy accounting can be designed with specific management tasks in mind, but external reporting of the information remains subject to management discretion over different cost allocation systems. Finally, is the issue of how to transform materials and energy management at the business level towards achieving broader goals such as keeping within planetary boundaries and accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals.

AB - Materials and energy accounting and reporting is a subset of environmental management accounting and reporting, which is a subset of sustainability accounting and reporting. Use and availability of materials and energy are of such high sustainability and economic relevance that specialised accounting has been developed to assist management in dealing with emissions and waste as well as the limited supply of natural resources. International standards, such as ISO 14051 Material Flow Coast Accounting and ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems, aim to improve awareness of the importance and the efficient use of materials and energy in business. Physical and monetary information about materials and energy use can then be provided to stakeholders for the purpose of accountability. Challenges include determining the role of accountants in this space and choosing between different standards available. A second challenge is that materials and energy accounting can be designed with specific management tasks in mind, but external reporting of the information remains subject to management discretion over different cost allocation systems. Finally, is the issue of how to transform materials and energy management at the business level towards achieving broader goals such as keeping within planetary boundaries and accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85109238179&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/297e9d11-8c6d-3366-86e6-283e82d93d57/

U2 - 10.4324/9780367152369

DO - 10.4324/9780367152369

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-0-367-15233-8

SP - 207

EP - 223

BT - Routledge Handbook of Environmental Accounting

A2 - Bebbington, Jan

A2 - Larrinaga, Carlos

A2 - O'Dwyer, Brendan

A2 - Thomson, Ian

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

CY - London

ER -