Evidenciação de Informações Ambientais pela Contabilidade: um Estudo Comparativo entre as Normas Internacionais (ISAR/UNCTAD), Norte Americanas e Brasileiras

Abstract

   This study investigates the converging and diverging aspects between the standards and recommendations as to evidence of an environmental nature, issued in the North American and Brazilian sphere concerning the environmental disclosure model, which has been internationally proposed by ISAR/UNCTAD. This model was taken as a parameter, in view of the detailing of its recommendations as to environmental disclosure in accountancy statements, in the explanatory notes, in environmental reports and specific evidence in CEO, management and financial/operational reports. To achieve the proposed objective, in depth knowledge on the environmental disclosure standards and recommendations in the three areas was sought, after which a comparative analysis with a descriptive approach was undertaken. According to the results, North American standards issued by the SEC, FASB and AICPA, are limited to demanding, in yearly statements, the extent of information on facts that may have an impact on the economic/financial shape of companies, focusing mainly on investor protection. They do not, however, cover more encompassing information as to corporate environmental sustainability, in this being unlike the model proposed by ISAR/UNCTAD. In the Brazilian domain, not only does company law not call for environmental disclosure in annual statements, but the CFC and IBRACON standards present a level of detail far inferior to that recommended by ISAR/UNCTAD, widely encompassing improvements being required to bring them up to international standards.