Abstract
This chapter illustrates some aspects of the green reporting and its impact on the business strategy of an economic entity. The main objectives of this chapter are to present the green reporting and the green accounting synthesis documents and, also, to present the computer program for the green report of an economic entity. Based on the national and international literature, the authors present the concepts of the green reporting and integrated report and a computer program specifically designed to record green costs and green reporting. They present the types of green costs and the legislation related to the green reporting. The aspects presented by the authors are based on the national and international literature, specialized studies related to the topic of this study. A new theoretical-empirical framework is created by the authors through their contribution, which facilitates the identification of new ideas, themes, and debates of other issues encountered in the world business environment.
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Conceptual Approaches of Sustainability
In the evolution of the concept of sustainability, the basic idea remained the same, but the specialists have presented several interesting approaches. Thus, some authors have focused on the essence of enhancing and preserving the environment (Shrivastava and Hart, 1992; Santos and Filho, 2005) and the sustainable society (Elkington, 1997), while other authors have reached the economic aspect of the concept of sustainability. According to experts, a sustainable society must meet three conditions: its rates of renewable resources use should not exceed their regeneration rates; its rates of renewable resources use should not exceed the rate at which the alternative sustainable suppliers have developed; and the pollution emission rates must not exceed the capacity of the environment assimilation (Elkington, 1997). Sustainability is a fundamental and complex construction that helps maintain the balance of several factors for the long existence of the planet (Aras & Crowther, 2009). This construction has continued to gain the attention of the specialists, becoming one of the most important problems faced by mankind due to the continuing pressure of the society and investors (Ambec & Lanoie, 2008; Epstein, 2008; Lippman, 2010).
Sustainability represents the development of the society and its evolution towards a rich and more comfortable world, where the natural environment and cultural achievements are reserved for future generations. Nowadays, in addition to the benefits of the future generations, the viability offers gains of value and finance (Dyllick & Hockerts, 2002). Other conceptual approaches to the notion of sustainability refer to the expectations of improving the social and environmental performance of the present generation without including the ability of the future generations to meet their social and environmental needs (Brundtland et al., 2003). The sustainability framework is a flexible one in the specialized literature, and the opinions of the specialists provide a wider range of concepts:
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Related to the environment such as: innovation in the sustainable marketing (Iles, 2008), Sustainable Reporting (Blengini & Shields, 2010), sustainability and consumer perception (Mc Donald and Oates, 2006); production construction and sustainability (Yan et al., 2008);
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Related to the social environment and the environment such as: promoting sustainability (Frame & Newton, 2007), sustainable society (Dewangga et al., 2008);
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Related to the social and economic environment such as: sustainability and marketing (Kirchgeorg & Winn, 2006);
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Related to the social, economic and environmental environment such as: sustainable corporate performance (Collins et al., 2007).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Environmental Performance: Results that can be measured by a company's environmental management.
Software program: Algorithm in a source code, written in a certain programming language, used to accomplish a purpose.
Environment: The environment in which a company operates, including air, water, soil, flora, fauna, man, and relationships between them.
Sustainability: The current economic and social development without damaging the natural environment.
Environmental Monitoring: Monitoring, forecasting, warning and intervention for the systematic assessment of environmental components in order to know the state of its quality in order to decide in accordance with reality.
Green Reporting: ( GR): Report on the financial situation of a company based on information on costs and environmental indicators.
Environmental Indicator: Information that quantifies the state of quality at a time.