Modelling 'hard-to-measure' costs in environmental management accounting

Abstract

This paper reviews measurement issues that have arisen in the environmental management accounting literature and provides a statistical approach to quantifying the financial results associated with vaguely defined outcomes from physical processes. Among the latter are outcomes relating to safety and pollution both of which also impact on political visibility. A classification of 'hard-to-measure' costs is given with illustrations of how mathematical modelling allows these to be estimated and their implications for decision-making better understood. Our approach provides an integrated analysis of return and risk.