IMPLEMENTING ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO STRENGTHEN SUSTAINABLE SMES
Abstract
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly required to adopt sustainable business practices in response to growing stakeholder expectations regarding environmental accountability and organizational sustainability. However, many SMEs continue to rely on conventional accounting systems that inadequately capture environmental information, limiting their ability to identify environmental costs, improve resource efficiency, and support sustainability-oriented decisionmaking. This community engagement program aimed to implement an Environmental Management Accounting Information System (EMAIS) to strengthen sustainable business management among SMEs. The program employed a participatory approach consisting of preliminary assessment, capacitybuilding workshops, technical training, participatory system development, continuous mentoring, and monitoring and evaluation. The implemented EMAIS integrates financial and environmental information into a unified digital platform, enabling systematic identification and recording of environmental costs, monitoring of resource utilization, and generation of sustainability-related information to support managerial decision-making. The implementation enhanced participants' understanding of Environmental Management Accounting, improved digital accounting competencies, strengthened the management of environmental information, and increased organizational awareness of sustainable business practices. Furthermore, the integrated system improved accounting accuracy, resource efficiency, environmental accountability, and the availability of reliable information for strategic planning. This community engagement program provides a practical and replicable framework for implementing Environmental Management Accounting Information Systems in SMEs, thereby supporting sustainable business management, improving environmental performance, and strengthening organizational competitiveness in increasingly sustainability-oriented markets.