Textbook Problem

The following items are listed in an environmental financial statement (issued as part of an environmental progress report):

Environmental benefits (savings, income, and cost avoidance):

• Ozone-depleting substances cost reductions
• Hazardous waste disposal cost reductions
• Hazardous waste material cost reductions
• Nonhazardous waste disposal cost reductions
• Nonhazardous waste material cost reductions
• Recycling income
• Energy conservation cost savings
• Packaging cost reductions

Environmental costs:

• Corporate-level administrative costs
• Auditor fees
• Environmental engineering
• Facility professionals and programs
• Packaging professionals and programs for packaging reductions
• Pollution controls: Operations and maintenance
• Pollution controls: Depreciation
• Attorney fees for cleanup claims, and notices of violations (NOVs)
• Settlements of government claims
• Waste disposal
• Environmental taxes for packaging
• Remediation/cleanup: On-site
• Remediation/cleanup: Off-site

Required:

1. 1. Classify each item in the statement as prevention, detection, internal failure, or external failure. In classifying the items listed in the environmental benefits category, first classify the underlying cost item (e.g., the cost of hazardous waste disposal). Next, think of how you would classify the cost of the activities that led to the cost reduction. That is, how would you classify the macro activity: reducing hazardous waste cost disposal?
2. 2. Assuming ecoefficiency, what relationship over time would you expect to observe between the environmental benefits category and the environmental costs category?