Ecological transfer accounting is ecological accounting turned onto the question where did the cost go? For a major automation project it records three columns rather than one: local gain (productivity, profit, reduced cost), exported burden (unemployment, household income loss, public assistance, retraining, local tax decline, skill loss, dependency), and capacity returned (cheaper services, public dividends, employee ownership, new tools, new opportunities). A firm reporting only “productivity rose sixty percent” has drawn its accounting boundary to hide the transfer; this makes the transfer legible.
Its governing principle is that an automation project should not call itself successful by excluding the social costs it exports from its accounting boundary. It is among the most practical instruments in the transition program, because it converts a vague sense of “AI is disruptive” into a specific, contestable ledger. Consistent with the framework’s refusal to let any metric acquire ontological authority, it remains evidence for judgment, never a master score.