To improve our understanding and management of resources and to meet the challenges of climate change and other social and environmental problems we need to have a more comprehensive understanding of costs. The goal is completing the market by including all relevant costs. This will require changes in accounting and will be reflected in the terminology used in accounting.

Transferring costs to others has enabled many corporations and individuals to appear profitable and to become very wealthy. As the CEO of Interface Carpet put it, “Only when all these ‘externalities’ appear in prices, profits, and losses can an honest market function responsibly.” We can no longer allow uncounted costs to be spread across Society and future generations. These costs fall disproportionately on the less affluent families, communities and nations. 

The worst climate change gas emitting companies and countries, like the US, should be held accountable and pay remediation fees to provide more sustainable markets and lifeways for these poorer nations. If the US charged the same fee for CO2e emissions as Sweden, the account for climate change protection and reduction would grow by almost 800 billion dollars a year. Half might be spent in the US, half abroad.

One of the current challenges is agreeing upon the methods and names for more comprehensive cost accounting that includes environmental and social costs. This has been called: Full Environmental Cost Accounting, Total Cost Accounting, Total Cost Assessment, Environmental Accounting, Ecological Accounting, Full Cost Accounting, True Cost Accounting and many other terms. The many names that have been used are confusing and have obscured the shared vision of many authors about the vital importance of this task. The most common use is "True Cost" but Complete or Comprehensive Cost Accounting may be more useful.