Alternative Resource and Environmental Accounting Approaches and their Contribution to Policy

Abstract

It has now been over 25 years since researchers and statisticians around the world began serious efforts in resource and environmental accounting. While interest in these efforts remains reasonably strong (as evidenced by the continual scheduling of workshops such as this), the interest still appears to be confined to those in academics or research or to those in the environmental movement who hope (in vain, I believe) that such accounting will have a major role to play in preserving and protecting the natural environment. Official efforts in resource and environmental accounting on the part of governments remains sparse, being confined to tiny staff efforts in a handful of countries around the world.

Paper prepared for the international conference ‘Applications of Environmental Accounting’ sponsored by the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and the State and Science Technological Commission of the People’s Republic of China, 11–13 March, 1996, China. Also, a contributed paper for the International Symposium on Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting in Theory and Practice sponsored by the Economic Planning Agency of Japan, the United Nations University, and the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, Tokyo, Japan 5–8 March, 1996.