Environmental accounting in the tourism sector
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18041/2539-3669/gestion_libre.20.2025.13591Keywords:
Environmental Accounting, Sustainable Development, Environmental Impacts, Sustainability, TourismAbstract
Introduction: This article presents an exploratory analysis of the social representation of environmental accounting in the tourism sector and its importance for sustainable development.
Objective: To characterize the beliefs, values, and practices associated with environmental accounting in the tourism sector and its importance for sustainable development.
Method: The research is conducted with a qualitative-interpretive approach. A basic qualitative design is used, based on in-depth interviews with key informants, analysis of specialized literature, and a robust triangulation scheme.
Results: The findings indicate that stakeholders understood environmental accounting as a language that translates the relationship between economics and ecology, focusing on quantifying the environmental impacts of tourism. On a value level, a convergence is identified between the ethics of care and sustainable profitability, shaping a vision where sustainability is assumed as a moral principle and a competitive advantage. In practical terms, actions remained fragmented and empirical due to a lack of regulations, technological tools, and interdisciplinary training, which limits their effective institutionalization.
Conclusion: Environmental accounting in tourism is consolidating as a social construct in evolution, grounded in ethical values and situated knowledge, but its application is still in its early stages. Strengthening it requires the coordination of public policies, interdisciplinary education, and the development of technical tools to facilitate its adoption and implementation. This study provides evidence of how tourism stakeholders reinterpret environmental accounting within their specific contexts, demonstrating that, more than just an accounting technique, it constitutes a tool for social and cultural learning, capable of integrating ethics, economics, and territory in the pursuit of truly sustainable tourism development.
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