True Cost Accounting
Abstract
True cost accounting is needed to understand the true value proposition. If external social and environmental costs and benefits are ignored, the market fails and we face a very grim future. Economists too often consider only a small subset of the market, so although their work is very precise it is commonly environmentally ignorant and socially bankrupt.
Truce Cost Accounting is particularly important for food and agriculture. Even rudimentary calculations of the external costs and benefits will help lead to change. Transactions between consumers, companies, organizations, and communities will be more sustainable and lead to a more positive future. We need to make True Cost Reporting and Accounting easier for accountants, CEOs, CFOs, engineers, farmers, foresters, park managers, designers, sustainability report writers, and database and data mining software developers. We also need to make these reports more consumer friendly.
Keywords
True cost, complete cost accounting, external costs, gross domestic product, index of sustainable economic welfare, ISEW, gross national happiness, GNH, social accounting, health expenditures, livable future, sustainability accounting, sustainability reporting, global reporting, GRI, B corporations, ecological costs, climate change, sea level rise, wildfires, extreme storms, carbon emissions, carbon sequestration, acid rain, Pigou, reprocessing, return to nature, recycling, eutrophication
Presentations
Papers
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