Published in Accounting Times, April 1999

The United States-Asia Environmental Partnership (US-AEP) and the U.S. Council of State Governments (CSG) have approved a grant that will enable the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA) to deliver a course on Environmental Cost Assessment and Cleaner Production for the country�s accountants and finance practitioners.

The course will teach accountants and finance practitioners how to uncover and understand their company�s environmental costs and how to correctly evaluate the profitability of environmental projects. The course will also include an introduction to the concepts of pollution prevention and clean technologies. These concepts are vital to make the connection between clean technology and profitability. These will also pave the way towards the development and implementation of effective environmental management systems and environmental decision making by the industry.

One of the topics in the course is the application of the Total Cost Assessment (TCA) approach to the comprehensive, long-term financial analysis of clean technology investment. For this purpose, a software package that was developed by Tellus Institute (Boston, MA) will be used. The software has been modified to suit profitability analysis practices in the Philippines including tax and energy structures. The course curriculum will also be taught around a set of case studies developed using the experience of Philippine companies that have already integrated environmental projects in their processes.