Green Success: Process-based Environmental Cost Accounting — Implementation in SME’s in Germany

This paper presents the initial results of a research project titled “Integration of Environmental Cost Accounting into Environmental Management Systems by SMEs”. The project was funded by the German Federal Foundation for the Environment, Osnabrück. Following an analysis of various different concepts of environmental cost accounting, a process of implementation is shown, based on two selected enterprises.The environmental cost accounting system to be applied is sustainabilityoriented and process-based. The concept was developed for operational use in small and medium sized enterprises and represents a further development of existing flow cost accounting systems.This document reports on the first half of the project, which will be completed in June 2003. For this reason, only the first modules of the actual project design can be presented together with examples of operational practice, and the remaining modules are therefore presented on a theoretical basis only.