Perhaps one of major growing crisis face today by the world inhabitants is environmental crisis. Such issues as ozone layers depletion, acid rain,
drought, pollution, species extinction, habit destruction, global warming, and green house effect continue to pose treat to the continuation of life on the planet. Most, if not all of the above are caused through man's activities in what is known as business or economic activities.
The question is what can business do to ameliorate the above scenario? It is on this background that this research work investigates the feasibility of
environmental accounting and reporting in financial statements of Nigerian firms and actual disclosure. Also the work sought to know the attitude of
managers and professional accountants on environmental disclosure. As at year end 2006, a total of 94 firms were listed on Nigerian Stock
exchange. These firms were carefully scrutinized based on three criteria as listed in chapter three of this study, 37 firms were found to posses all the
criteria and thus form the sample for the study. While 10 audit firms were selected using random sampling technique. Data were collected using
primary and secondary sources. Primary data were sourced through questionnaire while secondary data were sourced from journals, textbooks
and other relevant materials. Such data were analysed using tables, simple percentages and t-test was used to test the hypotheses.
The study reveals that it is feasible and practicable to report environment issues in annual reports and that the attitude of managers and professional accountant to environmental accounting and reporting can significantly affect the report. Another major finding of the study is that environmental reporting will become a general practice in the future, this is in agreement with the United Nations Global Environmental Outlook 2000(GEO2000). Hence, the study recommends that government; professional bodies and all stakeholders should intensify their efforts to abate the environmental crisis. Also further research in environmental issues in an attempt to come up with a standard format for accounting for environmental activities was recommended.
