ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING (EMA) PRACTICES – A Case study of a Finnish manufacturing company
Uljas, Päivi (2017)
Kuvaus
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Tiivistelmä
Interest in Environmental management accounting (EMA) has increased through the growing understanding of the relation between financial profitability and environmental factors. This research attempts to explore current EMA practices and describe EMA as a phenomen. More specifically, the intension is to investigate physical and monetary aspects of EMA, EMA tools and reporting and encountered challenges in EMA use.
EMA is often defined as integration of organizations’ economic and environmental goals where both financial and non-financial information is utilized. The concept of EMA includes both physical material flows as well as monetary environmental information. EMA focuses on internal information to support decision-making, but also a two-way connection with external reporting has been identified, which refers that EMA may be used to construct external environmental reports or external environmental reporting may trigger a need for the development of EMA practices. This research is a mixed-method research with qualitative emphasis, but some quantitative aspects are included aswell. The research is conducted as a case study of one Finnish manufacturing company. Data is collected from multiple sources; semi-structured interviews, interviewer-administrated questionnaire and documentary analysis.
As a result for the case company, it was found out, that physical aspects of EMA are more emphasized over monetary aspects. It was aslo discovered, that Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) are the most used EMA method. Moreover, the most visible challenge in EMA use was identified as manual work, which increases the risk of human error and inconsistency in the figures. The general target of enriching the understanding of EMA and describing it as a phenomen, was achieved.
EMA is often defined as integration of organizations’ economic and environmental goals where both financial and non-financial information is utilized. The concept of EMA includes both physical material flows as well as monetary environmental information. EMA focuses on internal information to support decision-making, but also a two-way connection with external reporting has been identified, which refers that EMA may be used to construct external environmental reports or external environmental reporting may trigger a need for the development of EMA practices. This research is a mixed-method research with qualitative emphasis, but some quantitative aspects are included aswell. The research is conducted as a case study of one Finnish manufacturing company. Data is collected from multiple sources; semi-structured interviews, interviewer-administrated questionnaire and documentary analysis.
As a result for the case company, it was found out, that physical aspects of EMA are more emphasized over monetary aspects. It was aslo discovered, that Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) are the most used EMA method. Moreover, the most visible challenge in EMA use was identified as manual work, which increases the risk of human error and inconsistency in the figures. The general target of enriching the understanding of EMA and describing it as a phenomen, was achieved.