Environmental Management Accounting Practices in Japanese Manufacturing Sites

Previous questionnaire surveys on environmental management accounting (EMA) practices in Japan have targeted managers in environmental departments in corporate headquarters as being representative of the company perspective. By conducting a questionnaire survey in manufacturing sites this paper attempts to clarify Japanese corporate EMA practices at the operational level. Since environmental departments in headquarters are presumed to have considerable influence on the introduction and performance of environmental accounting at sites this study analyses the relationship between manufacturing sites and headquarters. As a result, the following points were identified. First, the main purpose of environmental accounting at manufacturing sites is to send data to headquarters. Second, approximately half of the sites in the sample used environmental accounting for internal management and environmental accounting was felt to be more useful at these sites than at those which did not use it for internal management. Third, an effective headquarters advises sites about the introduction of environmental accounting for internal management.