CHAPTER-4

FINDING, CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDTION

FINDING:

A difference of opinion between Indian Public and Private sector companies has been found about
the significant challenges faced by them in environmental protection and management. A relation
between the ownership and the significance of Environmental Accounting and Reporting between
environmental accounting in public and private sector Indian companies has been established. It
has been observed that public companies as compared to the private companies are slightly more
in favour of environmental accounting. A relation between the cost of Environmental Accounting
and Reporting and ownership has also been found .There is a significant difference of opinion
about cost of environmental accounting and reporting in Indian public and private sector
companies. Public sector companies indicated relatively a higher cost of Environmental
Accounting and Reporting. There is no significant difference between attitude of public and private
sector Indian companies regarding the nature of disclosure of Environmental Accounting and
Reporting. Neither public nor private companies strongly favoured either only qualitative or
quantitative information .Both public & private companies have strongly favored a mixture of both
the quantitative as well as the qualitative information. Public & private companies are also found
to be unanimous about the periodicity of Environmental Accounting and Reporting as both of them
have strongly found reporting on yearly basis to be most substantial, convenient and cost effective.
A uniformity regarding environmental auditing for better environmental accounting and reporting
in Indian public and private companies has been observed .Although both the public and private
companies have disagreed for a mandatory environmental auditing but each of them found it to be
very essential . A large number of the public and private sector Indian companies have defined
environmental accounting and reporting system in the similar manner. There is no significant
difference in the opinion of public and private sector companies about the various components of
definition of environmental accounting and reporting system. There is also no significant
difference of the opinion of public and private sector companies relating to problems faced by
them in implementing environmental accounting and reporting. Most of the public and private
sector Indian companies do not favour a formal environmental accounting and reporting system
.There is no significant difference in the opinion of public and private sector companies about the
unavailability of formal environmental accounting and reporting system. An insignificant
difference of opinion of public and private sector companies has also been found in identifying the
persons to be made responsible for the task of Environmental Accounting and Reporting .Both
the Public and private sector Indian companies significantly found lack of accounting standards as
one of the main causes for not having formal environmental accounting and reporting system. A
large number of the public and private sector Indian companies are in favour of a committee to
monitor company’s environmental responsibility activities or creation in the organization of a
separate department for corporate environmental accounting and reporting. Both public and private
sector Indian companies also consider adaptation of environmental accounting and reporting
equally beneficial. However they do not want to have a separate statement in the company policy
relating to environmental accounting and reporting. There is no significant difference of the
opinion of public and private sector companies about the formal Environmental Accounting and
Reporting awareness training programme for the employees. Further both the public and private
sector Indian companies are in favor of on the job mode for formal Environmental Accounting and
Reporting awareness training programmes for employees. Majority of public and private sector
Indian companies did not find a need for of special norms for environmental accounting and
reporting in the light of liberalization. A need for specified budget allocation for the environmental
accounting and reporting has been indicated both by public and private sector Indian companies.
Therefore both have emphasized specific budget allocation for the environmental accounting and
reporting. Both the public and private Indian 237 companies have similar opinion about the various
environmental costing approaches according to order of importance and similarly. No difference
of opinion of public and private sector Indian companies is found about the significance of
environmental auditing. However majority of the public and private sector Indian companies do
not want to have a separate audit department for environmental accounting and reporting as it
might raise the operational coast and complications in its implementation. A large number of the
public and private sector Indian companies did not favour the adoption of norms of ISO 14001 for
disclosure of environmental accounting and reporting in the public sector companies. Majority of
the public & private sector companies also felt a strong need for the separate presentation of
environmental activities in the financial statements. In regard of bringing about more stringent
legislation to facilitate corporate activities by the Government for Environmental Accounting and
reporting both the public & private companies have agreed. It was also observed that companies
in India do not provide environmental information because the disclosure may jeopardize
confidentiality in the sensitive areas and thereby, may adversely affect their competitive position.

CONCLUSION:

As from this we conclude that the green accounting practices are very important because the
business get its resources from the environment and it does not include the value of that resources
so it must be the duty of each and every business to follow green accounting practices in India. As
it is beneficial not only for the business but also for the environment in which the business operates
as the resources present in the environment are very limited and scarce so the business has to
include the value of that resources.

SUGESSTION & RECOMMENDATION:

The term environmental accounting is frequently used within the accounting and environmental
management literatures. Environmental accounting is a broader term that relates to the provision
of environmental-performance related information to stakeholders both within, and outside, an
organization. The following are the recommendations based on the findings of the study for better
Environmental Accounting and reporting:

1) Environment is a big challenge for business these days and both public and private
companies must establish an efficient system of environmental management to take care of
it. The executives such companies surveyed found environment as one of the most important
challenges faced by them. A large numbers of the companies already have inadequate
Environmental Management System to deal with environmental related issues but there is a
need for further improvement and awareness.
2) The existing financial accounting framework is not comprehensive enough to deal with
specific environmental problems. There is need for a separate standard and /or conceptual
framework on the issue.
3) A large number of companies do not prepare environmental accounts as these are not
mandatory. Lack of accounting standard and ignorance of benefits of environmental
accounting are the other reasons. The companies should prepare environmental accounts
 mainly because it will help them in complying with various legislations. It is also important
that environmental accounting system will facilitate decision making while management
can provide better estimates of the cost of production.
4) There are certain misconceptions about Environmental Accounting and Reporting whereas
the term environmental accounting is to be understood as the compilation of data on
environmental related issues within an accounting framework. It also covers the
interpretation of these data and reporting.
5) Environmental statements prepared by Indian companies should be verified by an auditor
to increase credibility of information provided by them. An audit would also help these
companies in complying with various environmental norms. There is a need for appointment
of a team mainly comprising of external environmental auditors to do this work.
6) The environment is one of strategic issues but is mostly not included in the annual reports
due to space constraints, although it may not be possible for companies to provide detailed
information on environment in annual reports, however for the users of the financial
statements, the company may disclose detailed environmental information through stand
alone corporate environmental reports.
7) To encourage companies to spend more on the environment, government may consider for
providing certain incentives and tax exemptions on the expenditure incurred on
Environmental Accounting and reporting activities.