03 Ing-Desarrollo Sostenible

Environmental accounting is a discipline that measures the environmental impact of business activities. It translates these impacts into monetary units, making them tangible and comparable for decision-making. By using standardized reporting frameworks, companies can compare their environmental performance and strive for improvement. Environmental accounting also benefits companies by attracting ethical consumers and investors, and by mitigating negative externalities. Overall, it plays a crucial role in promoting sustainable development and regenerative business models. Welcome to a new episode of our podcast. This time, we'll address a topic of great relevance today, environmental accounting and its strategic contribution to advancing sustainable development. We'll examine the emergence of this discipline as a response to the need to consider not only financial indicators, but also externalities, understanding externality as the side effects or indirect impacts that an action, activity, or decision may have on third parties not directly involved in that action, including the environmental impacts generated by business activities. We'll highlight its ability to express these impacts in quantifiable and comparable terms, thereby facilitating decision-making. In this context, we seek the coherent integration of ideas, promoting a perspective that considers both financial aspects and external impacts for a more comprehensive and sustainable decision-making process. Let's get started. Origin of environmental accounting Environmental accounting arises from the search for a balance between economic growth and environmental preservation. It emerges from the evolution in environmental awareness and the demand from organizations to measure not only their profits, but also their positive and negative contributions to society and the planet. It specifically focuses on identifying, recording, and communicating the impact of business activities on the environment. Thus, it becomes a tool for quantifying and transparently communicating the environmental footprint, allowing the expression of commitment to sustainability. Translation of environmental externalities The great contribution of green accounting is to translate externalities, that is, the economic, social, and environmental side effects into monetary units. This provides tangible and comparable different types of impacts, which could previously be perceived as abstract and difficult to weigh for managerial decision-making. By speaking the universal language of money, it becomes easier to evaluate compensations and opt for more sustainable initiatives. Comparability and informed decision-making Another great benefit of monetarily accounting for externalities is the ability to contrast environmental performance between companies in the same terms, even from different industries and geographic areas. This is enabled by standardized reporting frameworks such as GRI standards, which are progressively being adopted. This encourages healthy competition for continuous improvement in environmental sustainability among companies. And having tangible data on green costs and savings allows business leaders to make informed decisions that benefit both finances and the environment, driving strategic innovative and eco-efficient solutions. Benefits of environmental accounting In addition to the positive impact within companies themselves, environmental accounting also brings multiple benefits to companies' relationships with consumers and society at large. Firstly, it allows responding to the growing expectations of ethical consumers who reward transparency in terms of environmental sustainability and good social practices. On the other hand, by monetarily communicating positive contributions, it can also attract investments and strategic alliances with other stakeholders aligned with the vision of the triple bottom line. Also, the mere exercise of identifying, measuring, and actively managing negative externalities already represents progress towards mitigating environmental problems that affect us all. Environmental accounting is positioned as a central piece on the sustainability chessboard by providing companies with a common language to communicate and manage their environmental impacts. By translating externalities into monetary units, comparability, virtuous competition for continuous improvement, and the possibility of making well-informed managerial decisions that benefit both the financial and environmental performance of organizations are facilitated. This is how green accounting becomes a powerful ally and catalyst in the transition towards more regenerative business models and a global economy aligned with the principles of sustainable development. I hope this information has been useful to you. See you next time!