Accounting for greenhouse gas emissions
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2004
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Abstract
The Canadian government is in the process of developing legislation and policies to reduce national levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The first wave of these initiatives is aimed at large industrial emitters. The goal of this project is to provide the latter with recommendations on how they can best account for their emissions to facilitate compliance with the emerging regulatory regime. The project begins by considering the technical constraints associated with accurately developing a greenhouse gas inventory. It then looks at constitutional issues that inform the types of laws and policies that may be developed at the federal and provincial level. It continues by detailing the emerging reporting framework and the trading markets. Best current industry accounting and reporting practices are then documented. The project concludes with a case study that evaluates the potential of an alternative accounting methodology - activity-based costing (ABC) - to provide higher quality data to decision makers in emitting firms. ABC was found to provide a number of advantages over current best practices. These include its ability to help identify internal emission reduction opportunities and their associated costs, improve the quality of internal reports to management and external reports to stakeholders, and provide valuable information for emissions management strategies. Together these advantages can assist firms in more effectively meeting the identified policies and legislation, reducing their exposure to emissions-related liabilities, and participating effectively in emissions trading markets.
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Bibliography: p. 135-141
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Citation
Goldenberg, A. (2004). Accounting for greenhouse gas emissions (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/23083