Abstract

Managing and controlling environmental costs at a contaminated site can be a cumbersome undertaking followed by a frustrated accounting attempt to identify, track, compile, audit, estimate, or forecast these expenditures. How can you be sure that the money you spend constitutes reasonable and customary charges? Where are the statistical analyses comparing costs to cleanup a polluted facility? What are the monetary and regulatory liabilities associated with this effort? How will the property and adjoining property values be affected by the stigma of pollution? Indeed, these are just a few of the questions corporate managers ask when involved with either a large scale Superfund site or a simple leaking underground storage tank cleanup. The costs associated with cleanup activities increase exponentially as the process slowly moves forward. However, armed with an environmental cost management plan, companies can take control and manage their costs and at the same time increase profits.