【正文】 environmental conservation benefits concerning environmental impacts and wastes from main business activities, (3) environmental conservation benefits concerning products and services of the pany, (4) other benefits. These environmental conservation benefits are, in principle, to be disclosed as a contrast to environmental costs. The economic benefits specified by the guidelines are classified into “economic benefits calculated on a credible basis” and “economic benefits based on hypothetical calculation”. The former includes some savings and revenues from environmental protection activities. The latter includes uncertain benefits such as risk avoidance 4 benefits. The guidelines require the pany to disclose only economic benefits calculated on a credible basis, but leave it open for panies, if they wish, to disclose the economic benefits based on hypothetical calculation without any additional guidance. The guidelines provide three formats for an environmental accounting statement within a corporate environmental report as follows: Format A: environmental cost only Format B: environmental cost and environmental conservation benefits Format C: environmental cost, environmental conservation benefits and economic benefits Format C is the most prehensive option, and is remended if the pany has the capacity to report at this level. The MOE guidelines have strongly influenced the voluntary environmental reporting practices of Japanese panies. Kokubu and Nashioka (2020) examined the disclosure of environmental accounting information by Japanese panies. They asked all 1,430 panies listed in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange to provide a copy of any corporate environmental report. The study collected 257 reports (18%) published in . The percentage of the panies publishing environmental reports was not so high. However, among these 257 panies, 184 panies (71%) disclosed environmental accounting information. Furthermore, the authors found that a majority of those panies disclosing environmental accounting information followed the MOE environmental accounting guidelines. METI Initiative METI formed an environmental accounting mittee in 1999, the secretariat of which is the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI). The mittee conducted a threeyear research project to develop EMA tools suited to Japanese panies. The project was pleted in March 2020 and METI published the “Environmental management accounting workbook” in June as the final product of the mittee. Whereas the MOE initiative places more importance on the external use of environmental accounting, the METI project focused exclusively on 5 the internal management functions of environmental accounting within panies. After releasing the workbook, METI has continued its EMA work. A new mittee on this issue is examining case studies and developing more simplified methods for small and medium enterprises. The METI workbook is the first book on EMA in Japan. It consists of the following seven sections. Section 1: A framework for environmental management accounting Section 2: Environmental capital investment appraisal Section 3: Environmental cost management Section 4: Material flow cost accounting Section 5: Lifecycle costing Section 6: Environmental corporate performance evaluation Section 7: For further development The contents of the main sections of the workbook (Section 2 to 6) will be briefly explained. Section 2 discusses environmental capital investment appraisal. This section introduces some conventional appraisal tools such as discounted cash flow methods and a payback method in this area, and then integrates economic information and environmental performance information that the investment is expected to achieve. The workbook proposes a new format for environmental investment appraisal