How to perform an environmental management cost assessment in one day

The article provides definitions for environmental accounting and environmental management accounting based on the approach developed for the United Nations Division of Sustainable Development UN DSD/DESA. It presents the basic framework for assessing corporate environmental costs as well as materials flows (including energy and water) and their costs. The paper is based on experiences from applying the UN DSD EMA framework in company workshops and case studies mainly in Austria. It especially describes how to check for data consistency within different information systems, like the list of accounts, stock management, production planning and process engineering. Common hurdles for obtaining data from different information systems are described and solutions for improved consistency of data in an organization are presented. It provides a detailed example of an assessment in a brewery in the excel tool developed to assist in the application of the UN DSD EMA approach.