A Systems View of the Environment of Environmental Accounting

Abstract

From time to time, it proves useful to theorists of advancing disciplines to consider how ideas developing in related disciplines might provide insights into their own progression. Environmental accounting and the systems sciences are parallel developments of the past half-century. The purpose of this article is to introduce certain ideas that are maturing in the systems sciences for consideration by environmental accountants and managers. Particular emphasis is placed on the works of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and James Grier Miller. Collectively, these ideas present evidence that economies emerge in environmental processes and continue only as long as they are fed by those processes. Accounting is concerned with economic process disclosure. A conclusion might be drawn, consequently, that environmental processes should be conspicuously disclosed in public accounting statements.

Citation

Swanson, G.A. (2006), "A Systems View of the Environment of Environmental Accounting", Freedman, M. and Jaggi, B. (Ed.) Environmental Accounting (Advances in Environmental Accounting & Management, Vol. 3), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 169-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3598(06)03006-8