THE CONCEPT OF ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNTING COSTS IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

In recent past decades has been verified agrowing concern of the society related with environmentalchanges caused by human activities, bringing forth adiscussion on organizational practices based onsustainability, that means to consider actions based in thetriple bottom approach: social, environmental and financialactivities. However, while some companies’ shows greaterinterest in preserving the environment and on issues relatedto social responsibility, the measurement of the costs relatedto these activities has not been an easy problem to solve. Theconcept of Ecological Accounting Costs addresses the costsunder a single dimension and this paper aims to presentstudies performed up to date, discussing the development,deployment, benefit and challenges of this accounting costapproach. The results from this study shows that this conceptis still in a consolidation stage, is little explored in academicliterature and deficiencies in the methodology should besolved.Index Terms ⎯ Ecological Accounting Costs, externalities,social responsibility, sustainability.