Environment Ministry Publishes Environmental Accounting Manual

A growing number of companies in Japan is publishing environmental reports. In order to further promote this environmental accounting, Japan's Ministry of the Environment (MOE) recently published a manual on environmental conservation cost categories for 2003, providing examples for reference when companies try to classify the costs of environmental conservation.

The MOE published the "Environmental Accounting Guidelines 2002" in March 2002, and the "Environmental Accounting Guidebook 2002" in June the same year. The latter has a question-and-answer section and gives examples of entries in environmental accounting records. Some users reported difficulty, however, in determining the right category for each type of environmental conservation cost.

Thus, the MOE created this new manual as a reference when classifying the costs in accordance with "Environmental Accounting Guidelines 2002." It presents 41 cases and relevant cost categories, and is also designed to give users an overview of cases from six perspectives, including the type of industry, ISO 14001 requirements, compliance with laws and regulations, type of environmental issue, and stakeholders.

The manual contains 60 pages, and is available upon request by mail or by downloading from the MOE web site.



Posted: 2003/05/24 04:17:26 PM
Japanese version