环境成本会计外文翻译.doc

原文： Environmental Cost Accounting Environmental management accounting serves as a mechanism for identifying and measuring the full spectrum of environmental costs of current production processes and the economic benefits of pollution prevention or cleaner processes, and to integrate these costs and benefits into day-to-day business decision-making. For the last decade, corporate environmental accounting has gained increased importance in practice, of which cost accounting receives most attention. This paper gives an overview of the approaches of environmental cost accounting. Key words: environmental cost, environmental protection, environmental management accounting Introduction In recent years, Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) has been attracting increasing attention throughout the world. There are various definitions of environmental management accounting, but essentially, an environmental management accounting system can be thought of as a management accounting system that has been refined so as to enable users of the system to be provided with information that reflects the environmental performance of the organisation. The United Nations Division for Sustainable Development has referred to environmental management accounting simply as “doing better, more comprehensive management accounting, while wearing an environmental hat that opens the eyes for hidden costs”. The information generated from an environmental management accounting system might be of a financial nature (for example, the quantification of environmental costs), or it might be provided in physical terms (such as the amount of electricity used within a particular process). Either way, the motivation for developing such a system would be to provide a foundation for an organisation to improve both its environmental and financial performance. Generally, companies are spending significant amount of money on pollution abatement and control. In most cases these costs represent the most obv