Accounting

Each year, company auditors certify the accounts show a ‘true and fair view’. If this were true, the world would not be in the position it is today.

The accounts are not fit for purpose and need a radical upgrade to include all the hidden costs previously excluded.

As a qualified accountant, I see this as going to the heart of nature’s destruction. The annual accounts are a fraud. They exclude any cost to nature and the environment.

Examples are:

Soil degradation.

Agricultural runoff poisoning water supplies.

Health costs resulting from pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and other poisons.

Rectifying harm caused to critical insect pollinators like bees.

Oil companies do not include the damage done to the environment in extracting the oil, nor healthcare costs of those affected by the pollution of transport, refining, distribution or burning their products. First it was lead in petrol, then diesel particulates, and now EMF fields in electric cars. ‘Oops, we poisoned you again.’

True Cost Accounting includes all these costs.

Nature is never included because nature has no voice. The polluter never pays. Polly Higgins sought to rectify this by creating Ecocide as the fifth crime against humanity. The other four are: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

Tragically, Polly died from sudden cancer in 2021.

In July 2023, the Netherlands Parliament proposed an ecocide law.

Polly Higgins

True Cost Accounting