Accounting for Water, Land and Biological Assets in the Context of Sustainable Development Management: The Choice of a Main Meter

Water, land and biological assets are key resources for human livelihoods. But while the value of the assets of the virtual economy is growing insanely, such assets of the real economy as natural resources, populations of individual animals and plant species are becoming increasingly limited, and their price in the financial statements of enterprises does not adequately reflect their social value. The purpose of the article is to disclose relativity and insufficiency of financial data about the water, land and biological assets in an enterprise's reporting for the needs of managing the sustainable development, and based on this, justifying the priority and wider use of a non-financial meters in accounting for such assets, as well as the need to generate reports based on combination of financial and non-financial information. The factors that increase the relativity of the money meter in accounting for water, land and biological assets were disclosed. Considerable attention is paid to the study of the content of non-financial reporting, which in our time is becoming an important component of information support for managing sustainable development. The expediency of the wide use of non-financial meters in accounting for water, land and biological assets was proved. Based on the systematization of water, land and biological assets and taking into account their natural and economic characteristics, an approach to the use of monetary and non-financial meters in the accounting of such assets was proposed. It was revealed that for natural assets non-financial meter is main, and for created or recreated by man – a monetary meter. However, both in the first and in the second case, a complementary meter should be used for the formation of full data of accounting at all levels, and mainly in reporting. Synthesis of financial and non-financial meters will help users better understand accounting data and will increase the effectiveness of managing sustainable development. An example was given of a combination of monetary and physical indicators in disclosing information on agricultural land plots and the right to use them in the notes to the annual financial statements.