Toward Improved Accounting for Natural Resources and the Environment

Abstract

The negative effects of human activity on the natural environment are becoming more and more apparent. The problems are all complex and require changes in many areas of life, from policies to projects to individual behavior. Environmental accounting is one of the possible tools that can encourage a move toward more sustainable development. Gross domestic product (GDP) figures are being widely used by economists, politicians and the media. But often, they are used without the caveat that they represent "unsustainable income" where they neglect the degradation of the natural asset base and view the sale of nonrenewable resources entirely as income. The paper describes the state of art in the field of environmental and resource accounting and suggests that further work is needed in order to properly account for natural resources and the environment and thereby help to direct us toward a more sustainable path of development.