Environmental Accounting: A Case Study of Implementation in Brazilian Public Airports

Environmental issues, a relevant topic today, have led accountants and business managers to consider them in management and accounting systems. Airport activities cause several environmental impacts; therefore, a management and control structure is needed to minimize the impact of airport activity on nature. This paper discusses the implementation of environmental accounting at the Brazilian Airport Infrastructure Company (Infraero), to evaluate the benefits of environmental management and show that environmental accounting helps managers to make decisions and adopt sustainable actions. Delimiting the theme, specifically for an airport administrator, it was sought to identify its sustainable activities, to know the environmental assets and liabilities, as well as the investments, costs, and expenses resulting from actions that involve the prevention, control, and recovery of the environment. In addition, we have verified the environmental information disclosed by the company in the last 5 years in its annual reports. The results obtained show that the company targeted by this study has been increasing its concern about the environment every year. This can be verified in ten programs covering the main topics of interest of airport administration in the areas of sustainability and compliance with environmental legislation and that environmental accounting can be an internal control tool to measure environmental spending and contribute to sustainable business strategies to gain a competitive advantage.