Note: EPA no longer updates this information, but it may be useful as a reference or resource.

Resources

Overview and General Guidance

Case Studies and Benchmarking Studies

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Overview and General Guidance

The Lean and Green Supply Chain: A Practical Guide for Material Managers and Supply Chain Managers to Reduce Costs and Improve Environmental Performance - January 2000. This booklet illustrates the efficiency-enhancing opportunities that arise when companies incorporate environmental costs and benefits into mainstream materials and supply chain management decision-making. It provides introductory guidance on how to identify these costs and benefits and how to adjust existing information systems and analysis techniques to better account for this significant category of costs. (EPA 742-R-00-001, 58 pages) (PDF)

An Introduction to Environmental Accounting as a Business Management Tool: Key Concepts and Terms - June 1995. This paper presents an overview of environmental accounting for those unfamiliar with environmental accounting. It describes what environmental accounting is, why it is important, outlines some application options, and presents key concepts, definitions, and issues. (EPA 742-R-95-001, 39 pages) (PDF)

Valuing Potential Environmental Liabilities for Managerial Decision-Making: A Review of Available Techniques - December 1996. This report describes publicly available approaches and tools that have been developed specifically for estimating the monetary value of potential, preventable environmental liability costs. (EPA 742-R-96-003, 114 pages) (PDF)

Case Studies and Benchmarking Studies

Enhancing Supply Chain Performance with Environmental Cost Information: Examples from Commonwealth Edison, Andersen Corporation, and Ashland Chemical - December 2000. This case study report illustrates how supply chain management practices can be improved by determining the financial impact of environmental improvements. Moreover, this report shows how this approach can be integrated into ongoing business processes. This case study focuses on multi-disciplinary processes that have been implemented by three companies: Commonwealth Edison, Anderson Corporations and Ashland Chemical Company. While the approaches vary among these companies, each one provides valuable lessons for other companies. The Enhancing Supply Chain Performance with Environmental Cost Information: Examples from Commonwealth Edison, Andersen Corporation, and Ashland Chemical is a companion piece and practical illustration of the principles laid out in The Lean and Green Supply Chain: A Practical Guide for Material Managers and Supply Chain Managers to Reduce Costs and Improve Environmental Performance. (PDF)

Healthy Hospitals: Environmental Improvement Through Environmental Accounting - July 2000. This report, by the Tellus Institute, describes current applications of environmental managerial accounting in nine US hospitals. Based on interviews of materials managers and environmental, health and safety staff, this report discusses the current status of environmental managerial accounting in hospitals and describes opportunities for hospitals to apply environmental managerial accounting to improve environmental performance and reduce costs. It also includes two case studies that demonstrate how hospitals applied environmental managerial accounting techniques to justify switching to a mercury-free alternatives and Ethylene Oxide minimization. (PDF)

Searching for the Profit in Pollution Prevention: Case Studies in the Corporate Evaluation of Environmental Opportunities - April 1998. This paper, written by James Boyd of Resources for the Future, presents three case studies on the decision-making processes surrounding pollution prevention investments at three large chemical manufacturing organizations: Dow, Monsanto, and Dupont. The case studies illuminate significant challenges facing P2 that may need to be studied and addressed by policy makers and industry alike. The cases demonstrate, for example, that corporate organizational or accounting weaknesses are not always at fault for firms' failure to adopt P2 alternatives. Instead, these particular projects foundered because of significant unresolved technical difficulties, marketing challenges, and regulatory barriers. The paper concludes with a discussion of environmental policy reforms and areas of research that the author feels are likely to promote P2 innovation. (EPA 742-R-98-005, 59 pages) (PDF)

Environmental Cost Accounting for Chemical and Oil Companies: A Benchmarking Study - June 1997. This report summarizes an environmental cost accounting benchmarking study of five major U.S. and Mexican companies that are developing environmental accounting systems. The purpose of this study was to allow the company participants to discuss the form and functions of their environmental accounting systems and the uses for the cost information yielded by such systems. This study was undertaken by the University of Houston's Institute for Corporate Environmental Management in partnership with the Business Council for Sustainable Development - Gulf of Mexico. (EPA 742-R-97-004, 60 pages) (PDF)

Applying Environmental Accounting to Electroplating Operations: An In-Depth Analysis - May 1997. This report presents research findings regarding the implementation of environmental accounting practices in the electroplating industry, including information on the types and magnitude of environmental costs this industry incurs, the feasibility of improving the tracking of each of these costs, recommendations for investigating these environmental cost structures, and conclusions regarding the potential for wider adoption and application of environmental accounting concepts in this industry. (EPA 742-R-97-003, 55 pages) (PDF)

Environmental Accounting Case Studies: Full Cost Accounting for Decision Making at Ontario Hydro - May 1996. This case study offers a comprehensive account of one public utility 's efforts to account for internal and external environmental costs. Useful data for other companies is included, such as external cost estimates for fossil fuel and nuclear energy production, methods for estimating internal and external costs, and methods for incorporating environmental accounting concepts into planning and decisionmaking. (EPA 742-R-95-004, 100 pages) (PDF)

Environmental Accounting Case Studies: Green Accounting at AT&T - September 1995. This case study reports AT&T 's developing position on "Green Accounting " as defined by AT&T as of July 1995. It outlines actions AT&T has taken to implement Environmental Accounting and includes their Green Accounting Glossary and excepts from their Green Activity Matrix. (EPA 742-R-95-003, 55 pages) (PDF)

Environmental Cost Accounting for Capital Budgeting: A Benchmark Survey for Management Accounting - September 1995. A part survey of 149 US manufacturing firms on the manner and extent to which those firms consider environmental costs an their routine capital budgeting processes, especially in the context of evaluating potential environmental investments. This study was done in collaboration with the Institute of Management Accounting. (EPA 742-R-95-005, 81 pages) (PDF- Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

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