ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING AS A NEW PARADIGM

Abstract

A growing social concern over environmental questions should not ignore economic development. Economic development and environmental quality are not opposing factors and one has to make them compatible. A great responsibility for this has to be attributed to companies. Sustainable development has to be promoted, guaranteeing that resources exploration, investments good management, the technological orientation and institutional change form a well-articulated unity, consistent with present needs and future challenges. Application of environmental policies that enhance a set of plans of action of the companies, regarding the environment, has revealed advantages for the ‘green’ companies. Accounting has the role of divulging information on costs and economic and strategic benefits of the adoption of environmental policies. As a consequence of the Financial Accounting limitations, it is the Environmental Accounting that has the responsibility of dealing with all the phenomena resulting from the company’s environmental influence. What are the accounting norms that govern the environmental matters in Portugal? What are the difficulties in measuring environmental phenomena? These are some of the questions that trouble and interest scholars of the Environmental Accounting as a new paradigm of the new times. Keywords: Environmental policies. Environmental accounting. Accounting norms.