ReviewEnvironmental accounting: In between raw data and information use for management practices
Introduction
At the end of 19th Century, the development of several new branches of sciences supported the birth of a new vision of the world. Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, chemistry (with the year 1860 conference in Karlsruhe) and ecology were among the key emerging disciplines, which enabled the disclosure of new narratives about our planet and the biosphere. Close to the Second World War, interdisciplinary enquiries tried, for the first time, to find deeper connections among chemistry, physics and biology. This is the case of the book “What is life?” by E. Schrodinger (1944). The same attention was given to the intersections between physics and social sciences, as suggested in the posthumous paper, published in year 1942, by the Italian physicist Ettore Majorana (Majorana and Mantegna, 2006). The focus on resources limitation, pollution and the environment developed a few decades later. The publication of “Silent Spring” (Carson, 1962), “Patient Earth” (Harte and Socolow, 1971) and “The limits to Growth” (Meadows et al., 1972) were among the signs of such a shift of attention. Systems ecology views, with the outstanding works by H. T. Odum (1924–2002), created a fertile background for further research, trying to develop a holistic view, in order to integrate the biophysical and socio-economic dimensions of human society. New interdisciplinary integration attempts, which are of interest for environmental accounting, were represented by ecophysics and evolutionary physics. In particular, starting from the 1970s, the study of physical conditions for life stability on planets were studied. In particular, they were developed on the basis of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and quantum mechanics, considering planet-star relations (e.g.: Sertorio, 1991, Sertorio and Renda, 2009). Then, allometric scaling laws for different living species were connected to the stability of different living species, also considering the differences among them, with a specific focus on humans (e.g.: Gorshkov, 1995). The interactions among humans, technologies and the environment, as well as economy, was discussed from a physical perspective (e.g.: Casazza, 2012, Sertorio and Renda, 2018), as well as from a socio-ecological perspective (e.g.: Odum, 2007, Singh et al., 2012, Lockie et al., 2014, Park and Guille-Escuret, 2017). Finally, the ecosystem dynamics was re-discussed, introducing the use of goal functions (also called orientors) instead of state functions (Tiezzi, 2006).
Three main facts are evident: Since the 1950s, humans have been the main cause of global environmental transformation, crossing the existing planetary boundaries, which constitute a safe space for humanity (Steffen et al., 2015); Biophysical and socio-economical processes cannot be understood and described separately, due to their mutual influences; Maintaining a “business-as-usual” style, ecosystem services and the biosphere will continue to decline (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000, Crutzen, 2002, Palmer et al., 2004, Steffen et al., 2007, Lewis and Maslin, 2015, Drutschinin et al., 2015). Consequently, evidence-based policies and actions should be adequately developed.
The present situation stimulated a growing convergence between Earth systems analysis (Schellnhuber et al., 2004) and sustainability scientists (Kates et al., 2001). In parallel, the quest for solutions stimulated the development of cleaner productions, circular economy, as well as newly emerging disciplines, like biomimicry. However, despite the huge amount of work already done, Folke et al. (2011) argued that it would be necessary to further integrate natural and social dimensions through new perspectives. Any narrative in this context requires a knowledge, which is generated by the elaboration of quantitative and qualitative field data. This is why socio-economic systems dynamics should be supported, first, by statistically reliable data, that can be used in numerical simulation, as well as for supporting appropriate decision making options.
In between data and narrative, which transform data into useful information, environmental accounting plays a crucial role. Broadly paralleling anatomy and physiology, environmental accounting can unveil the structures and functions of processes and society at different levels. This is why the word ‘metabolism’, which unveils the co-existence of concept assumes the multi-dimensional nature of accounting process, is often used (Lomas and Giampietro, 2017). Many different approaches, with respect to environmental accounting and management, came into light since the 1990s. They often developed as separate methods, having different conceptualizations behind them.
Environmental accounting conceptualizations and narratives are not separate. This is why, for example, in the case of LCA, the system characteristics, as well as impact categories, accounting methods, data quality requirements and report phase are defined during the scoping phase (EU-JRC, 2010). This is particularly true in the case of sustainability, where different interpretations co-exist (Patterson et al., 2017). In particular, ecological interpretations (e.g.: Grimm et al., 2005, Schlüer et al., 2014, Rounsevell et al., 2012) evolved from the idea of steady state (now disputed), to thresholds (as in the case of planetary boundaries) and carrying capacity, showing the connections of ecological and socio-economic processes, which are embedded in a global bio-physical system. In parallel, economic interpretations (e.g.: Coscieme et al., 2013, Filatova et al., 2013, Hinkel et al., 2014) tried to modify the vision of environmental costs as externalities with respect to economic activities. This allows to approach to the principle of intergenerational equity, integrating economic well-being with the preservation of the environment. Thermodynamic and ecological-economic interpretations (e.g.: Jørgensen et al., 2016, Wallace, 2016) described the socio-ecological dynamics on the basis of existing bio-physical constrains and on the use of statistical mechanics and thermodynamic language. The role of citizens, policy-makers and experts was discussed, considering the necessity of integrating all the existing views for developing sustainable public policies (Bäckstrand, 2003, Barr, 2016). In parallel, environmental accounting techniques were developed to include spatial representation of biophysical flows and resources use to identify appropriate planning options (e.g.: Zhang et al., 2007, Pulselli, 2010, Borriello, 2013).
The importance, in environmental accounting practices, of having a shared methodological and conceptual framework is a known fact. However, some limitations are still relevant in the development of accounting methods and practices. In particular: The links between local and global levels are often missed; Information flows are often neglected, even if they contribute to shaping the behavior of bio-system at all scales, is usually neglected (Young et al., 2006, Brown and Ulgiati, 2010, Pretty, 2011, UN-FCCC, 2015, Nielsen, 2016). Consequently, environmental accounting and management tools need to address these challenges: (1) use a multicriteria, multiscale, multipurpose framework, capable to integrate hierarchies, as well as the local and global visions; (2) adapt an assessed metrological approach for environmental accounting purposes; (3) integrate information into metabolic dynamics.
Beijing Normal University organized a World Summit on Environmental Accounting and Management, which was held in Beijing on July 4–6, 2016, on “Designing A Prosperous and Sustainable Future”. The main purpose was to discuss about the integration of system-wide effects into on-site environmental impacts, within the framework of environmental accounting and management. This international summit aimed to provide an opportunity to academic and decision-making professionals to discuss recent progress in biophysical and socioeconomic accounting as well as in modelling the impacts of anthropogenic activities on environmental and socioeconomic systems). Among the outcomes, this Special Volume (SV) of the Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP) is now published.
This paper has the purpose of giving a framework to the collected results, which include cutting-edge papers focused on promoting the theories, ideas and practices involved in ecological accounting and management. Moreover, results are discussed to identify the future challenges, which will support a better integration of the process, which starts from field data collection and develops into useful narratives for accelerating the transition to sustainable (and socially equitable) post fossil-carbon societies.
Section snippets
Objectives of this special volume
Table 1 lists the Environmental Accounting and Management methods, which are proposed in this SV, in terms of four criteria: (1) the method's Purpose, (2) Key concepts; (3) Analytical methods used for measuring indirect effects; (4) Corresponding papers. Each of them will be presented later in this work using these and other criteria. In particular, the main findings will be defined, showing the research topics, that need urgent attention in near future.
Present knowledge and challenges for environmental accounting
The global scientific production on environmental accounting, limitedly to research and review papers, counts up to 371 works, according to Web of Science (WOS), starting from year 1991, and 781 works, according to Scopus (Sc), going back to year 1976. Table 2 displays the top 15 WOS categories and Sc subject areas, including also the number of papers associated to each category or subject area.
Table 3 illustrates the top 15 source titles according to WOS and Sc, together with the number of
Papers published in the special volume
Applying the classification of Table 1 and considering the major research challenges (Table 5), published papers are introduced in the following sub-sections and, then, a general discussion is given in the last part of section 4.
Discussion
Considering the 45 papers published in this SV, the number of works dealing with each challenge, as well as the corresponding research needs identified in section 3, are summarized in Table 6.
Fig. 1 graphically represents the papers number subdivision with respect to different identified research needs. It is possible to see that most of the published works deal with the development of analytical models, especially if applied to supporting evidence-based policies. This means that the majority
Conclusions
The integration of environmental accounting and management tools and methods is of paramount importance both to define the best available cleaner production options and to support policymakers for accelerating the transition to equitable post fossil-carbon societies. Under this framework, this SV contains articles that focused on methods, technologies and management policies. Overall, the papers in this SV can be classified into eight subjects, including: (a) Environmental flow analysis; (b)
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFC0502800), Projects of Sino-America International Cooperation of National Natural Science Foundation (No. 51661125010), the Fund for Innovative Research Group of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51721093), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41471466, 71673029), Interdiscipline Research Funds of Beijing Normal University and the 111 Project (No. B17005).
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