The mechanisms for quantifying the costs incurred by asbestos removal projects

Since the 1970s, the subject of environmental accounting generates numerous debates within our scientific community. During the various stages structuring the notion of environmental accounting, the phase of formalization of this instrumentation began in the 1990s (Gray, 2002). In France, the Accounting National Council («Conseil National de la Comptabilité») sketched, from 1980, the beginnings of an environmental balance sheet. But it is only in 1996 that the Order of the Chartered accountants («Ordre des Experts Comptables») proposes a classification of the environmental allowances or still that the first work on «green» accounting is published (Christophe, 1995). At the European level, it is as well during this decade that the System of Economic and Environmental Accounting (SEEA) is created. These attempts of instrumentalisation of the social and environmental responsibility of the company constitute a means to bring a quantified "proof" calculated of the commitment (Burnett and Hansen, 2007; Lehman, 1999), to perfect the decision process (Kitzman, 2001), to legitimize the organization towards its environment (Cho and Patten, 2007; Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001) or still to improve the performance of the organization (Clarkson et al. 2008; Cormier and Magnan, 2007). However, if they symbolize a necessary evolution of accounting to integrate the environmental and societal dimensions, these accounting systems also face numerous challenges. If an easy consensus exists as soon as it is a question of saving the planet, the situation becomes more difficult when it comes to pay the price or to assign the efforts to the various stakeholders. But how much costs the protection of our environment and on what depend these costs? What are the factors that drive environmental costs? Our research relates to the dynamic of environmental cost accounting practices. Through different case studies on asbestos removal we try to capture the stakeholder's roles in the total cost of the events. Beyond technical concerns the total cost appears to be a social construction where stakeholder's activism, ignorance or avoidance have a major impact on the final result. The way project responsible respond and manage stakeholders and the time and period of time stakeholders are involved in the project are crucial on the final result. Our research shows four situations : the strong activism of stakeholders has the major impact on cost as the perimeter of the project always change. In one case, stakeholders are encapsulated with a technical solution which prevents them to change the context of the operation. In the third situation, stakeholders are managed to be avoided sequentially. That limits their impacts on cost. Finally, the last case refers to situations in which stakeholders are absent. The cost is then only drives by technical issues. The fundamental issue is the way the perimeter of relevant costs is modified by interactions between projects and their stakeholders. Theses interactions allow in some cases a re- internalization of externalized costs. The challenge to capture environmental costs through «new » accounting systems such as EMA (Environmental Management Accounting) is seriously questioned as it only takes into cost the most visible cost, in a static design, without any understanding of the dynamic of the costs incurred.