Environmental and Resource Accounting: An Overview
Author(s)
El Serafy, Salah; Lutz, Ernst
Abstract
Economic activity used to be small, but present levels of population and economic growth have been putting increasing pressure on the environment and natural resource base. Under these circumstances, there is little justification for economists’ neglect of the role of the environment as a resource base and a sink for wastes. Economists have been treating the side effects of production and consumption activities on the environment as externalities. However, since someone must pay the costs of these externalities, the true costs of all activities should be internalized, and income generation should be clearly differentiated from the depletion and degradation of natural resources.
