How Do You Become an Environmental Accountant?

become an environmental accountant

Whenever businesses operate, the environmental cost of their operations matters. In order to properly leverage the environmental cost of what they intend to do, businesses can benefit from the insight of environmental accountants. An environmental account may deal with both the costs accrued by their own company specifically or the implications of widespread societal actions as well.

In order to get the best picture of environmental costs, environmental accountants will need to be skilled when it comes to cost tracking. Through cost tracking, environmental accounts can ensure that they understand exactly what the origins of all environmental expenses are. By having a solid idea of where the costs originate from, they are capable of informing management of exactly how to handle those costs.

There is a very high demand for the expertise that environmental accountants have, but it pays to keep following things in mind about the profession and the industry if you intend on pursuing this career path for yourself.

Requirements and Responsibilities

To become an environmental accountant, the minimum educational requirement is a bachelors degree in accounting. Though some positions may necessitate a master’s degree, this is not the case for all positions.

Whatever a business may do, it must operate within environmental compliance. Much like all other forms of compliance, a business may find it challenging to remain within compliance unless they are able to keep track of the number of potentially complex metrics.

With the assistance of an environmental account, a business takes on less risk of accidentally failing to comply with environmental guidelines. By effectively managing their environmental costs, a business is in a far better position to invest a reasonable amount of their capital into other areas of their operations.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Like all other forms of accountants, an environmental account bases their expertise on an fundamental understanding of cost-benefit analysis. Through the insight afforded by an environmental accountants insight, the environmental costs themselves can be made less expensive.

While majorly specializing in environmental cost analysis, and environmental accountant may also lend her expertise towards more conventional financial cost calculation as well. Some of the alternative costs that environmental accountants may examine include process use, product use and chemical use. The different varieties of costs that a environmental account analyzes can assist the company in becoming more capable of environmentally-friendly and economically prudent product design.

Distinct Accounting Specialization

While formally referred to as environmental accountants, the title is actually an umbrella under which several distinct forms of specialized accounting can be categorized. Some of the different forms of accounting that fall under the classification of environmental accounting include natural accounting, financial accounting, and managerial accounting.

Natural accounting applies to natural resources, financial accounting is related to matters such as investor liability, and managerial accounting has to do with things such as product pricing and compliance strategy development.

Industry Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for an environmental accountants was roughly $65,000 in the year 2013. The BLS reports that the projected growth rate for accounting jobs could be anywhere between 8 and 14 percent by the year 2024, a fairly average rate when compared to other industries.

Related Resources: