A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Accounting Practices and Regulations in Nigeria Economy

Chapter One of A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Accounting Practices and Regulations in Nigeria Economy

INTRODUCTION

 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The need for environmental accounting has become the concern and focus of nations and responsible corporate management. It became one of the foremost issues on the agenda of nations and businesses earlier in the 1990’s and the reasons for this were varied emanating from both within and outside of the firm and particularly at the global level (Okoye and Ngwakwe, 2004). A lot of government enactments, laws and regulations on environmental protection have been made in several nations of the world and Nigeria is slowly responding.

In the light of the awakening to environment protection, various laws and regulations were enacted and one of such is the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, 1992. These require corporate management to consider the environmental implications of all internal decisions of their management. Also all organizations monitored by environmental policy agencies in Nigeria are expected to demonstrate much consideration in decision making.

It is rightly said that the World’s two greatest challenges are poverty and the systematic destruction of the environment. These two challenges have the capacity to destroy the entire world. It is considered that the world’s poverty level, particularly in the less developed nations is largely due to the inability to management environment which is fast degrading. Whereas industrial emission and effluence constitute great threat to the atmosphere, the native farmers are no less a threat to the effect of the ozone layer, the seas, oceans and land. Local farmers also systematically destroy the biodiversity through continued crude method of farming, falling of trees and bush burning and fishing methods without replacement of the natural resources.

Environmental issues for purpose of economic and cost accounting have also been controversial even though the topic has been identified for discussion for the past years. This is so because common criteria for value measurement of non-marketed, non-monetized resources and impact on externalities have not been agreed.

In the past, corporate organizations have ranked business considerations based on profitability. Companies have also recognized all indirect expenditure as overheads without paying attention to the environment. Conventional accounting practice has not recognized environmental accounting for materials, water, energy and other natural resource usage. Also it have not provided for such practice and particularly for accounting for impact on externalities. According to B. Field and M. Field (2002:xv) little was recognized of the environmental depletion and degradation to the environmental until a few well meaning people in the developed countries realized that it was no good having great corporate profits and material well-being if they come at the cost of large scale of ecosystem by which we are nourished. It became clear that degradation, pollution and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem and the depletion of non-renewable environment biodiversity would soon become very dangerous to human existence.

In the light of the background of increasing environmental attention, and the fact that the manufacturing sectors have profound production impact on the environment, the study has explored an assessment of environmental accounting in that sector in Calabar, Cross River State.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Cost accounting constitutes the central tool for management decisions such as product pricing and is not regulated by law. The primary purpose of cost accounting is to determine the production costs for different products in order to set the selling price of the products. The main stakeholders in cost accounting are various managers, such as executives and site, product and production managers. The fact that environmental costs are not fully identified in conventional management accounting often leads to distorted evaluations of options for improving production. The full benefits to the enterprise of environment protection projects, aiming to prevent emissions and waste at their source, improve the utilization of raw and auxiliary materials, and use less harmful operating materials, are not recognized and therefore may not be implemented. Executives and managers are often not aware that that the costs of producing waste and emissions are often greater than the cost of disposing of them.

The study seeks to find out answers to the following problems; does a conventional approach of cost accounting adequately cover important environmental costs? What are the effects of corporate neglect and avoidance of environmental costing in financial reporting? Does a financial statement that lacks vital environmental issues and activities reveal a ‘true and fair view” of the affairs of a company? Is there any legislature that enforces companies to report that environmental activities? What are the bases of measuring environmental cost? These questions constitute the problems that this study has to address.

 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The investigation of best practice of environmental accounting in selected manufacturing companies operating in Calabar, Cross River State is the broad objective of the study. The specific objectives of the study include the following:

• To assess the independence of tracking of all cost impacting on the environment.
• To investigate the level of environmental cost awareness in manufacturing companies
• To examine measurement procedure of environmental cost assessment in manufacturing companies.
• To investigate internal barriers affecting the collection of environmental cost information
• To examine the techniques used to evaluate the feasibility of environmental projects.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following questions are addressed in this study:

• To what extent are environmental operating expenses tracked independently of other operating expenses.
• What is the level of awareness of manufacturing companies in environmental cost.
• What are the measurement procedures of environment cost assessment adopted by manufacturing companies.
• What internal barriers affect the ability of the companies to collect environmental cost information?
• What are the techniques used to evaluate the feasibility of environmental projects.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study is an investigation on the development of environmental accounting and disclosure practices in manufacturing Companies in Calabar, Cross River State with emphasis on the Niger Mill Nigeria Plc.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

In this study, the following null hypotheses are postulated to guide the study;

• H0: Environment expenditures are not charged independently of other expenditure in the manufacturing sector.
• H0: The level of environmental cost awareness in manufacturing companies is not high.

 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance and justification for this study among others are:

Firstly, to engage corporate organization to adequately provide for environmental protection in their internal policies on investment and projects which impact on the environment. This will facilitate protection of the eco-efficiency and competitiveness among corporations in all productive sectors of the economy. The study will facilitate environmental cost reporting responsiveness and disclosure to investors and environmental regulatory agencies. This will facilitate efficient valuation of degradation in affected communities.

It is also expected that this study will evaluate the challenges and prospects facing organizations with regard to designing environmental accounting concepts and reporting.

Finally, the work will serve as reference material for study and other researcher who desire to research further in the field of environmental accounting.

PLAN OF THE STUDY

The study is divided into five (5) chapters in order to accomplish the research objectives.

Chapter one is the introductory part where the objectives and significance of the study among others is discussed.

In chapter two, relevant literature related to the topic shall be reviewed. In chapter three, the research methodology, will be stated and the model specified.

In chapter four, the data’s gathered will be presented, analyze and findings discussed. in chapter five the summary of the major findings will be stated, suggested recommendation as well as conclusion drawn.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

        Environmental Accounting:  In the context of national income accounting which refers to natural resource accounting. These entail statistics about a nation’s or region’s consumption of natural resources. It also takes into account the extent, quality and valuation of natural resources which are either renewable or non-renewable.

In the context of financial accounting usually refers to the preparation of financial reports to external users using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This is financial report to external users conveying the impact on environment and activities impacting on eco-efficiency.

Environmental accounting as an aspect of management accounting serves business managers in making capital investment decisions. This entails costing determinations, process/product design decisions, performance evaluations and a host of other forward-looking business decisions. It also coveys impact on the environment.

Environmental Cost Accounting:  This is used to refer to the addition of environmental cost information into existing cost accounting procedures and/or recognizing embedded environmental cost and allocating them to appropriate products or processes.

Full Cost Accounting:  This is a term often used to describe desirable environmental accounting practices. In management accounting “full costing” means the allocation of all direct and indirect cost to a product for the purposes of invention.