Curriculum for Environmental Accounting: A Comparative Analysis of the Viewpoints of Manufacturing and Financial Service-Rendering Organizations

In the prevalent scenario of environmental turmoil, the demand for managers acquainted with various environmental facets has started increasing in all types of organizations. Due to this rising demand, environmental management has become an integral part of management course curriculum across the globe. Of late, the industry practitioners and regulatory bodies in India have realized the importance of environmental management and its reporting to all stakeholders of the business, and thereby identified the requirement of managers who are well acquainted with the various aspects of environmental accounting for improving the corporate environmental reporting in India. This poses a challenge and opportunity to the management and accounting educators to design a course on environmental accounting to make the future managers conversant with various facets of environmental accounting and reporting. The present study assesses and compares the viewpoints of finance managers of 66 manufacturing and financial services-rendering organizations regarding the incorporation and importance of environmental accounting as a course in Indian management education and its benefits to the society at large. The findings support the incorporation of environmental accounting as a subject in Indian management education and provide a list of dimensions that can be relevant for structuring the course. The study also highlights the utility of environmental accounting to the business organizations, if it is incorporated as a course in Indian management education.