Contabilidad ambiental incorporando análisis emergético y externalidadesAplicación en la producción de soja

Resum

The objective of this work is to show the importance of consideringexternalities and the emergy methodology (Odum, Environmental Accounting,Emergy and Decision Making, 1996) as tools of environmental accounting.The externalities analysis shows the impact that a company’s activities causeoutside of its organizational limits. The emergy methodology offers a way toevaluate the thermodynamic performance of human activities. Traditionalaccounting has recognized, since the 1990s, the inadequacy of financialreports to show the impact of human activities resources on ecosystems.For this reason, many countries require the disclosure of investments,risks and environmental impacts. But, this set of information is insufficientto assess the impact of companies on ecosystems and the true benefitcost relationship. It is necessary to use methodologies that allow systemicvision of the nature-economy relationship. This case study compares theperformance of two different systems of soybean production (organic andagrochemical, the latter in two modalities). The results show that the organicsystem is more efficient. This method of measurement can be used to assess,more clearly, the technological alternatives and subsidize policy making toadjust the weight of anthropic activities on the ecosystems of the planet