Using Software Systems to Support Environmental Accounting Instruments

In the past 25 years various information instruments for environmental management have been developed. Some of them focus on the production process and hence can be called “process oriented”. The most important process-oriented instruments are corporate input-output balance, Environmental Performance Indicators and methods of flow cost accounting. They are described and compared in this paper. Benefits for the use of the different instruments are shown. For a continuous use of Environmental Accounting Instruments in day-to-day environmental management, these instruments need to be supported with modern information technologies. This paper shows IT strategies on how to integrate Environmental Accounting functionalities into a Business Information System, which are discussed and partly supported by results from two surveys. The benefit of a structured approach to develop and integrate Environmental Accounting functionalities into a Business Information System is shown. A process model for the IT implementation of Environmental Accounting instruments taking into account the integration into existing business software is presented based on the prototype model. The nine phases of the model are described and discussed. A case study at the glass manufacturing company SCHOTT Glas shows how Environmental Performance Indicator Systems can be implemented in SAP R/3 and in ERP Systems in general. The findings presented here are results from the research project INTUS

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