Why does EMA not include social costs and externalities?
Environmental management accounting EMA has been developed coming from conventional expenditure for waste treatment facilities, disposal fees, environmental protection and management costs and related issues. EMA adds a significant further cost factor, that is vital for internal calculation , as a decision basis for investment projects and for correct product pricing : the purchase value and production costs of all non-product output. It is calculated by multiplying the input side of the material flow analysis in tons, that is normally set up for environmental management projects and reporting, with the respective scrap (or efficiency loss) percentages of each material input. Waste is thus expensive not because of disposal fees, but because of wasted material purchase costs.
All these costs actually occur in the company, only they are normally not traced and traced and transparent. Therefore, they are neglected for decision making. It is the focus of the UN EMA methodology to make them visible.
Externalities, in contrast, occur outside the company and don’t show up in its accounts. Environmental and social costs to the general public are also evaluated by completely different methodologies, there is no “purchase value” in the books, but damage costs and “availability value” are estimated.
EMA in its current approach has been developed for company internal decision making and therefore focuses on tracing all real environmental and material efficiency loss expenditure for a given year. The focus is on improving a company’s information system and decision basis. The focus is not on estimating external effects and “soft” factors, such as image, credibility, ethics, as from an accountant’s perspective they will sooner or later be reflected in the annual accounts, but should not distort the cost basis of a previous year. For the calculation of investment projects and savings, however, these factors are considered.