Review of International Accounting Standards for Environmental Issues

This paper is based on a memorandum that was submitted to the IASC in February 1998. Now that IASC has completed its “core set of standards” including all new standards that are of particular relevance to environmental issues such as IAS 36 on Impairment of Assets, IAS 37 on Provisions, contingent liabilities and contingent assets and to a lesser extent, IAS 38 on Intangible assets, FEE has updated its earlier memorandum. The paper deals with six main issues, identifying areas where individual standards would benefit by the inclusion of additional requirements or implementation guidance:

• disclosure of environmental costs and liabilities,
• criteria for capitalising environmental expenditure,
• recognising provisions for environmental costs,
• disclosure of environmental risks and uncertainties,
• impairment of assets, including damage to own property, and
• fines and penalties, pollution permits and emission rights.

The publication is available in electronic format only

Position Paper