Reviewing Environmental Management Accounting from Strategic Management Accounting perspective

Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) makes use of the following two types of information for internal decision-making: (a) physical information as related to energy, water and materials (including waste) and (b) monetary information on environement-related costs and earnings. (International Guidelines on Environmental Management Accounting, by IFAC, 2004). EMA thus should support corporate environmental management (and corporate environmental strategy), resulting in improved business efficiency and effectiveness. The underlying view is that an environmentally friendly corporate strategy is able to appeal to customers, employees and investors. Strategic Management Accounting (SMA), in the form of EMA, should offer effective support to such corporate strategic decision making processes. More specifically, the 3 main areas of benefits of EMA usage are: compliance efficiency, eco-efficiency and strategic position (IFAC, 2004). EMA typically involves "life-cycle costing, full-cost accounting, benefits assessment and strategic planning for environmental management." (IFAC, 2004).

The topic of Environmental Management Accounting was not explained in detail in standard Management Accounting textbook. Anyway, there is no single universally accepted definition of EMA (IFAC, 2004). Nevertheless, there are some useful references from the Internet. I strongly recommend you to study the Exposure Draft of "International Guidelines on Environmental Management Accounting", which provides relevant information and discussion that is related to Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) study. The second document I suggest you to study is A guide on Environmental Management published by CIMA. This document explicitly explains the role of Management Accountants in Environmental Management. There are also a number of brief articles published by CIMA on this topic. As to academic articles on this topic, I suggest you to study Dillard, Brown and Marshall (2005). Their work specifically addresses the task of how to establish environmentally enabling accounting information systems. For them, there are 3 intended goals in this kind of accounting initiatives: legitimacy, competitive advantage, and enlightened management. It is not difficult to spot the relationship of their work with the SMA theme, especially on competitive advantage (2nd intended goal)-based accounting initatives. It probably is  more controversial when we examine to what extent, EMA from a SMA perspective, should cover the legitimacy (1st intended goal) and enlightened management (3rd intended goal). From my undestanding, the subject of strategic management itself is broad enough to consider all the 3 intended goals. Another academic article that is relevant is Jones (2010). Below is a diagram that depicts the main concepts and concerns in Environmental Management Accounting from SMA perspective:

As you review these documents, try to consider the list of SMA evaluation questions (Ho, 2011). Try also to make sense of the viewpoints and ideas when reading EMA articles in terms of the diagram above. If you have more time to do literature review, try to also study articles on Environmental Management from a more general management perspective, e.g. Wagner (2007) and Epstein and Roy (1998). This kind of articles provides useful contextual information for your review and deepen your understanding on your topic of investigation.


References

1. CIMA (year unknown) A guide on Environmental Management, CIMA publication
2. Dillard, J., Brown, D. and Marshall, R.S. (2005) "An environmentally enlightened accounting", Accounting Forum 29, pp. 77-101.
3. Epstein, M. and Roy, M.J. (1998) "Managing Corporate Environmental Performance: A multinational perspective", European Management Journal 16(3), pp. 284-296.
4. IFAC (2004) "International Guidelines on Environmental Management Accounting: Exposure Draft", published by International Federation of Accountants, Nov.
5. Jones, M.J. (2010) "Accounting for the environment: towards a theoretical perspective for environmental accounting and reporting", Accounting Forum 34, pp. 123-138.
6. Wagner, M. (2007) "Integration of environmental management with other managerial functions of the firm", Long Range Planning 40, pp. 611-628.
7. http://josephho33.blogspot.com/2011/08/corporate-environmental-management.html