AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Master of Technology degree in Cost and Management Accounting, Department of Management Accounting, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. Environmental degeneration, market pressures and stricter regulation and waste legislation has placed organizations under tremendous pressure to change their current processes and adopt cleaner production (CP) techniques and technologies. However, in countries like South Africa, CP implementation still remains low. In light of this problem, the government has made efforts to promote CP among industries by forming a support structure called the RECP (resource efficient cleaner production), as a strategy to encourage organizations to embrace this change and move away from the tradition end-of-pipe technologies towards CP technologies. This study is based on a case study of a paper manufacturing company in Kwadakuza, KwaZulu-Natal. The aim of this study was to use Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) to identify benefits of CP. Paper manufacturing consumes large amounts of natural resources and generates excessive wastes. Hence, the operational activities of paper mills have a negative environmental impact. However, the scope of this study was limited to the steam generation process and focused mainly on the efficiency of the current coal-fired boilers used in the boiler plant. The research methodology used in the study was both quantitative and qualitative involving triangulation. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and documentary review. The company uses old, obsolete boilers to generate steam. It had been discovered during a cleaner production assessment (CPA) of the process that the process uses large amounts of coal and generates excessive boiler ash (waste). This boiler ash also contains approximately 20 percent unburned coal present resulting in major losses to the company. Furthermore, the company has also experienced regular breakdowns during the year resulting in loss in production and high maintenance costs. Hence, it was concluded that the steam generation process was inefficient and that the boilers were not operating as per technological specification. However, management was unaware of the huge losses incurred due to raw material losses, more especially the coal used in the process. Environmental costs were also inaccurately calculated and thus underestimated. Hence, the ‘true environmental’ costs were not considered during strategic decision making. Over the last two decades, EMA has emerged as an important approach by organizations wanting to improve their environmental and economic performances. However, despite the many pilot projects conducted that demonstrated the positive impact that EMA has on an organization, EMA implementation remains slow and lagging in South Africa. EMA is an environmental management tool that traces environmental costs directly to the processes and products that are responsible for those costs, thereby…