Environmental Accounting as a Strategic Tool for Corporate Sustainability: A Quantitative Study of Construction Firms

Abstract

Construction companies require strategic tools to integrate sustainability into their management; therefore, this study sought to analyze how environmental accounting serves as a strategic tool for corporate sustainability in small businesses in the construction sector, using a quantitative, basic-research study that involved experimentation with variables and a cross-sectional design. The population consists of business entities in the construction sector in the city of Cajamarca, duly registered with the National Superintendency of Tax Administration. The sample consists of 51 companies in the same sector, identified through convenience sampling. The research method employed was a survey, and the instrument was a well-structured questionnaire with Likert-scale responses, which was validated with expert opinions for greater reliability; Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated. The collected data were processed using IBM SPSS Statistics 27; a scatterplot with boxplots was also generated. The findings confirm that environmental accounting provides useful information for business management and is significantly associated with corporate sustainability. It is concluded that environmental accounting enables the generation of valid reports that provide useful information for strengthening sustainability in companies in the construction sector; it also allows companies to align themselves with the principles of social responsibility and environmental protection.