Environmental Accounting and Its Focus in Business Education in Bangladesh: A Review

Abstract

Environmental Accounting (EA) represents a specialised branch of accounting that integrates the assessment of environmental costs and benefits into financial and managerial reporting frameworks. This discipline encompasses the systematic collection, recording, classification, extraction and summarisation of information pertinent to the natural environment. In recent years, EA has emerged as a dynamic and increasingly significant field within the global academic and business communities. In Bangladesh, business academicians have been showing their interest in the discourse of environment-related information, as an emerging and dynamic field, through scholarly publications, particularly in the form of e-articles. This paper examines the current nature of e-articles on EA and their contribution to higher business education in Bangladesh. Many e-resources on EA contributed by the academicians of different higher education in Bangladesh are reviewed, which are available on the internet. The reviewed e-articles indicate that businesses are increasingly attentive to environmental considerations, which exert a material impact on their financial statements. Specifically, EA is conceptualised as a vital tool for environmental management, enabling businesses to integrate ecological considerations into strategic decision-making processes. The scholarly contributions highlight the role of EA in promoting transparency and accountability in corporate environmental performance, thereby aligning financial reporting with sustainability objectives. Moreover, the e-articles underscore the growing importance of EA in shaping business education curricula. By addressing topics such as environmental cost accounting, sustainability reporting and the integration of environmental metrics into financial analysis, these publications provide valuable resources for educators and students.