The Research Of Environmental Cost Accounting Based On The Low-carbon Economy

In the past over 30 years China has undergone earthshaking changes. She has grown up to an energetic body that attracts the attention from all over the world. However, it has also been realized that the economy boom conflicts with the harmonious development of society. Environmental pollution and climate change that accompanied the economy boom have become the primary issues we have to face. China paid huge price for the economy’s rapid increase, such as desertification, frequently arising of extreme weather, pollution of air and water, destroy of natural resources, etc. Then how much did we pay? To answer this question, measurements had to be taken to calculate the price. Therefore, environmental cost accounting emerged accordingly. Having been developed more than 20 years, the research of environmental cost accounting has reached outstanding achievements. As the development of environmental cost accounting is tightly correlated with environmental changes, when "low-carbon wave" swept across the entire world nowadays, the research of environmental cost accounting also stepped into a brand new phase. Under this very background, this thesis, employing induction, comparative analysis, deduction, and case analysis etc., looked into and studied environmental cost accounting related problems from the point of low-carbon economy. This thesis is comprised of 9 chapters:Chapter I, introduction. Along with the increasing of the environmental Pollution, people start to think about the relationship of economy booming, environment and social development and pay more attention on the environmental problems. Now, because of the energy shortage of the environmental pollution, the implement of energy saving and emission reduction, changes in the traditional mode of economic development, which is high energy consumption, high pollution, development of low-carbon economy, which is low power consumption, low pollution, low emissions and achievement of the sustainable development of economy and society will become the common choice of the world. When people all-over the world is trying to response to climate change, it’s better to develop the low-carbon economy than to cope with the new rules drew up by the developed countries. It’s more important for China at the developing stage. The development of low-carbon economic will accelerate the appropriate adjustments of the environmental cost accounting which makes it have the ability to accommodate the low-carbon economy, and at the same time, it also means that the development of environmental cost accounting are about to experience a new stage. Based on the considerations above, we identified that the key point of this study is the environmental cost accounting based on low-carbon economy.Environmental cost accounting based on the low-carbon economy can enrich and improve the current theory system, provide ideas for the guidelines develping of the cost accounting. On the other hand, studies on environmental cost accounting is conducive to the sustainable development of our economy, helping enterprises to take more social responsibility and become more competitive, accelerating the connect of China’s accounting standards with international accounting practices.ChapterⅡ, review. This chapter summarized the relative researches which laid a good theoretical basis for this study from five aspects:concept, classification, recognition and measurement and information disclosure of economical costs. It was found that the current studies on environmental costs, both China and abroad have covered almost all the content of the traditional cost theory and system, achieved impressive results and been with a high theoretical and practical value. At present, results of studies on environmental cost accounting has gradually become a system, but it still has lots of disadvantages, such as not deep enough, still has many significant differences on some problems and did has no scientific, complete and widely accepted theories. Meanwhile, many of the researches were not creative enough. And, the environmental costs studies of China currently focus on the general research and accounting, as for the practical handling, the concern is still not enough. For there is only small amount of the research results on the effect of low-carbon economy on the environmental costs of the enterprise, research on the environmental costs along with the low-carbon economy will be a new subject. To systematically complete the recognition, measurement, recording and results reporting of environmental costs will be not only a challenge, but also a chance.ChapterⅢ, Theoretical basis. The theoretical basis of environmental accounting contains sustainable development theory, externality theory, the total cost theory, theory of value of environmental resources. All of the theories are guiding the overall operation of environmental cost accounting. Sustainable development theory is the general guidelines, externality theory and the asymmetric information theory is the theoretical support of the environmental costs reorganization and measurement, especially for the external environmental costs disclosure. To analysis of the theories mentioned above along with the environmental problems is the prerequisite of studying environmental costs accounting.Chapter IV, the re-recognition of environmental costs based on the view of low-carbon economy. Through the analysis of domestic and international environment, it is noted that the development of low-carbon economy, the essence of which is energy saving and emission reduction, is an inevitable choice for China at this stage. It is consistent with our advocating on the environmental protection industry, new energy industry, ecological economy, economy, resource-saving and environment-friendly society and is still embodied in the concept of scientific development and sustainable development. The business development model established based on the theory above must pay more attention on energy restructuring and energy conservation technology research, which will certainly be reflected in the accounting of the enterprise, and environmental cost accounting is the bearer of reflecting mission. So we define the environmental costs based on low-carbon economy as the objective of sustainable development then measure the total outflow of economic benefits related environmental damage occurred, environmental protection, environmental control and carbon emissions reduction in the whole product life cycle, classify the environmental costs into cost of carbon emissions, energy saving and emission reduction costs, the cost of pollution control, pollution damage costs, environmental affairs management costs.Chapter V, recognition and measurement of environmental costs based on the low-carbon economy. Based on the confirmation of the effect of the low-carbon economy on the environmental cost, this chapter analyzed the specifications and methods of environmental costs confirming and verified that the environmental costs which could tell the difference between capitalization and expense is the most important factor to the reorganization of the environmental costs. Measurement was based on the reorganization, but the approach of measuring the external and internal environmental costs was totally different.Chapter VI, collection and allocation of environmental costs based on the low-carbon economy. After recognizing and measuring, environmental costs will be collected and included into the different accounts according to their applications. On the basis of the process of cost keeping, the environmental costs which are related to the products should be included into the product cost account at the end the accounting period. This chapter will do the deep investigate on the content above.Chapter VII, information disclosure of environmental costs based on the low-carbon economy. The environmental costs accounting report is a concentrate of the cost accounting information in a certain period. According to the needs of the development of low-carbon economy, not only the related data of environmental costs, but also the emissions of carbon dioxide and other waste in a certain accounting period should be included in the environmental costs report. So, based on the references, this study analyzed the disadvantages of the current environmental costs accounting report; gave the advice of constructing new environmental costs accounting report system.Chapter VIII, examples. Chapter V, VI, VII is the theoretical analysis and discussion of many environmental costs accounting problems, and this chapter takes an enterprises producing steel as an example to prove these theories. It verified the practicality and operability of environmental costs reorganization and measurement, collection and allocation and the environmental costs report theories through the business related environmental services of the enterprise occurred in a certain year.Chapter VIIII, conclusion. The objective of the environmental costs accounting is to enable enterprises to adapt to the trend of low-carbon economy and to apply the environmental costs accounting in the enterprise development. This chapter analyzed the resistance of implementing environmental cost accounting in enterprise in China under the vision of sustainable development, proposed the strategy such as paying great attention on environmental cost accounting methods and applicable research, strengthening government regulation and public oversight, encouraging a full range of environmental education to promote the practice of environmental cost accounting.This study is a new attempt to investigate the environmental cost accounting based on the low-carbon economy. The innovations of this study are as following:firstly, innovation of perspective. All of the previous researches focused on the other angles except the investigation environmental cost accounting based on low-carbon economy, this study is first the touch of this aspect. Secondly, innovation of content.①Based on the re-definition, we re-classify environmental costs into five categories:energy saving and emission reduction costs, the cost of pollution damage, treatment and rehabilitation costs, the cost of environmental affairs management.②Construct the account system for environmental costs accounting which can be carried out in practice.③Explore positively recognition and measurement, collection and allocation and the report of environmental costs accounting. While proposing the Chinese model of environmental costs report. A new environmental costs report model, which can reflect the environmental costs and waste emissions, is presented of on the basis of the comprehensive analysis of the current reports.④List the example to verify the environmental costs theory. Verify all of the theories and approaches exist in this study through the practical case.