Environmental Accounting Using Emergy

In this important new work, Howard T. Odum, widely acknowledged as the father of systems ecology, lucidly explains his concept of emergy, a measure of real wealth that provides a rational, science-based method of evaluating commodities, services, and environmental goods. Using specific real-world examples, Dr. Odum clearly demonstrates the revolutionary role of emergy in environmental management and policy making. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making offers environmental professionals—policymakers, managers, ecologists, planners, developers, and activists—a systematic approach to environmental and economic valuation that will eliminate much of the rancor and adversarial decision making that often plagues environmental issues. Specifically, this book: Describes the theoretical basis, calculation procedures, and applications of emergy Introduces the concept of "transformity," the ratio of emergy (work put into a product) and energy (value received from the product) Provides formulas for emergy calculations, procedures for making an emergy evaluation table, and parameters for updating evaluations Demonstrates the use of emergy to evaluate environments, minerals, waters, primary energy sources, economic developments, and international trade Compares the emergy approach to environmental evaluation with others Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making will help environmental decision makers and the society they serve maximize economic vitality with less trial and error, innovate with fewer failures, and adapt to change more rapidly. It provides the tools they need to arrive at the best policies in resource management, economics, and the environment. Balancing the economy and the environment— from the father of systems ecology Increasing economic dependence on diminishing natural resources has sparked a highly charged debate over the use and fate of the world environment. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making presents a unique method of environmental management based on maximizing real wealth, the whole economy, and the public benefit. Renowned ecologist Howard T. Odum introduces the concept of emergy to provide a rational alternative to the tug-of-war over the world's most vital assets. Emergy measures the energy put into making a product and is the cornerstone of Odum's revolutionary text. This timely and important book offers key insights into: Determining the real value of a product or service Transformity, or the relationship between emergy (input) and energy (output) Stored wealth, available energy, and the final product Balancing economic and environmental needs Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making will help economists, ecologists, policymakers, and planners make more responsible, informed decisions to sustain economic and environmental development.

This book builds on the analyses of Eugene and Howard Odum and introduces the concept of systems ecology. Ecological emergy accounting represents a breakthrough because it allows researchers to integrate man-made capital and natural capital so that human and natural concerns can be addressed using a consistent system of units. This book develops an emergy accounting model that is suitable for describing urban systems, thereby providing a comprehensive picture of those systems. To make the theory concrete, the authors use China’s Macao Special Administrative Region as a case study, and compare the results for Macao with those of other urban ecosystems around the world in the fields of ecological economy, tourism, waste treatment, gambling industry, land reclamation and resource consumption etc. Dr. Kampeng Lei is an advisory senior technician at the Environmental Protection Bureau, Government of Macao, China; Shaoqi Zhou is a professor at the College of Environment and Energy, the South China University of Technology, and the Guizhou Academy of Sciences, China; Zhishi Wang is a professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology, the University of Macau, China.

This title was first published in 2003. Our cherished economic indicators of income, product, consumption and capital fail in taking a long-term view of social progress. They do not account for environmental deterioration, which impairs the quality of life of present and future generations, and hence the sustainability of development. "Greening" the conventional national (and corporate) accounts introduces environmental impacts and costs into these accounts and balances. The result is a new compass for steering the economy towards sustainability, which may change not only our main measures of economic performance but also the basic tenets of environmental and resource policies. This book presents methodological advances and case studies of environmental accounting, and discusses their use in environmental management and policies. In their introduction, the editors provide a critical perspective of historical developments and current debates.

Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) is increasingly recognised as a distinguished tool of environmental management. It helps to integrate a company's environmental and business interests, whereby enhancing corporate eco-efficiency in terms of reducing environmental costs or making one's product more competitive. This book gives a comprehensive coverage of the state of the art. It presents a number of EMA frameworks that companies can take as a basis for implementing their own specific EMA structures. Besides discussing environmental accounting issues within conventional management accounting, it gives a detailed picture of materials flow (cost) accounting as an alternative way of looking at the ecology-economy relationships at the corporate level. A fascinating case study shows how a large company (Siemens) applies materials flow accounting and what benefits it entails.

This handbook showcases the broad spectrum of diverse approaches to environmental accounting which have developed during the last 30 years across the globe. The volume covers a range of physical issues such as water, carbon and biodiversity, as well as specific accounting matters such as management control, finance and audit. Moreover, seven chapters present environmental accounting issues that arise in the regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, MENA, North America, the Pacific and South America. The handbook also highlights future challenges in all the topic areas addressed as well as introducing new topics, such as links between environmental accounting and the circular economy, and the issues associated with animal rights. Edited by leading scholars in the area and with key contributions from across the discipline, and covering a diverse range of perspectives and locations, the volume is divided into five key parts: • Part 1: Framing the issues • Part 2: Financial accounting and reporting • Part 3: Management accounting • Part 4: Global and local perspectives • Part 5: Thematic topics in environmental accounting This handbook will act as a significant publication in drawing together the history of the field and important reference points in its future development, and will serve as a vital resource for students and scholars of environmental accounting and environmental economics.

Howard T. Odum possessed one of the most innovative minds of the twentieth century. He pioneered the fields of ecological engineering, ecological economics, and environmental accounting, working throughout his life to better understand the interrelationships of energy, environment, and society and their importance to the well-being of humanity and the planet. This volume is a major modernization of Odum's classic work on the significance of power and its role in society, bringing his approach and insight to a whole new generation of students and scholars. For this edition Odum refines his original theories and introduces two new measures: emergy and transformity. These concepts can be used to evaluate and compare systems and their transformation and use of resources by accounting for all the energies and materials that flow in and out and expressing them in equivalent ability to do work. Natural energies such as solar radiation and the cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are diagrammed in terms of energy and emergy flow. Through this method Odum reveals the similarities between human economic and social systems and the ecosystems of the natural world. In the process, we discover that our survival and prosperity are regulated as much by the laws of energetics as are systems of the physical and chemical world.