Environmental Accounting of the Rice Industry in Southern Brazil
Cristina Keiko Yamaguchi, Melissa Watanabe, Miguelangelo Gianezini

Abstract
From of economic, environmental and social aspects in the organizations, emerges a great concern about the level of commitment of rice industries, which is often low and is characterized by a high waste of natural and energy resources. Industries are confronted with a new reality, due to the concern with the transparent and ethical behavior in relation to the environment. Given this reality, industries have been a greater concern related to the concept of environmental responsibility oriented to the standardization, analysis and disclaim of environmental information. In this sense, environmental accounting emerges as an alternative to show environmental facts and events in industry. However, very little is as yet known how environmental accounting is used to show environmental events. Given these gaps, this study intended to verify how environmental accounting could contribute to show environmental responsibility in rice industries. To perform this study, it was developed an exploratory-descriptive study. The methodological procedures held was literature revision and application of a semi-structured query to accountants and managers of rice industries located in the South extreme of Santa Catarina and in Rio Grande do Sul. An analysis of results of exploratory studies pointed out that industries do not use to separate facts and environmental accounting events from traditional accounts and, due to this, there is a lack of clarity and knowledge about the applicability of environmental accounting. In this sense, this study intends to know why environmental account is not included in traditional accounting. The interviews show that it is possible to apply environmental accounting and the main reason that makes industries not to apply environmental accounting is the lack of knowledge and the non-obligation of the current legislation in Brazil. Therefore, faced with the need of showing environmental accounts and disseminate the information that the industry works in a transparent, responsible way, environmental accounting can be seen as a mean that enables the evidence of environmental responsibility of industries.

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