Evidence of Environmental Accounting in Australian Companies

A growing concern for environmental issues has resulted in calls for improvement in corporate environmental performance. In Australia, as elsewhere, this has involved the discussion as to the role of accounting and accountants in environmental management (Burritt and Gibson, 1993; Hrisak, 1995). This paper reports on the adoption of environmental accounting practices by Australian companies. Using a survey instrument, information was collected on the existence and development of environmental accounting processes within Top 500 Australian companies. The results indicate that many companies are utilising internal systems for the generation of environmental accounting data; however there appears to be a limited translation of the internal accounting information into external environmental reporting, despite a belief by many respondents that such information is useful to users of the annual report.