The V South American Conference of Environmental Accounting (CSCA) -Human Values and Sustainable Consumption will be held on the 29th and 30th June 2017, at the Scholl of Economics, Management, and Accounting at the Universidade de Brasília. This conference is a partnership between the Universidade de Brasília and the Universidade de São Paulo, and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and the Universidade Federal da Bahia.
The changes in the natural environment that are becoming a challenge not only to the society but also to organizations in general. Currently, there is a debate about the planet sustainability, and about how the social, environmental and financial aspects are strictly connected, and that together, they should be taken into consideration.
Accounting, within its field, has as objective to produce information to support management process with the aims to appropriated resources allocations to achieve eco-efficiency and satisfaction of parties involved regarding benefits and returns on investments. Thus, accounting can be of fundamental importance to manage resources, which interacts with social and environmental aspects.
The level of environmental degradation caused by human and economic activities requires high levels of investments from organization to repair the damages, when firms are responsible for it, or to ameliorate the adverse effects that emerged from organizations’ operations. Nevertheless, such costs should be incurred gradually and proportionately to the organizations’ production capacity. This proportionality is to avoid the risk of disrupt business activities, causing economics and social impacts.
Consequently, research has been carried to explore, among others, the following topics: Organizations’ behavior; social, environmental and economic impacts; specific particularities of economic sectors; performance indicators; liabilities incurred from the adaptation of operational processes; fines due to non-compliance with environmental regulations or non-compliance with the requirements for disclosure of compulsory information. Social and environmental information can be interpreted as a significant contribution to sustainable development because problems turn visible and understandable, so alternative solutions are developed more clearly, considering each particular case and event.
The objective of CSCA is to promote research on environmental accounting, encouraging dissemination of research and contributing so their finding can be applied to the understanding and problem solving of organizations and societies.
The event will include the participation of researchers, academics, students and professionals in accounting and related areas, who are based in Brazil and South America, who are interested in the discussion of accounting for sustainable development.