Accounting was designed to facilitate economic growth and, as such, tends to reinforce dynamics that are harmful to the environment. Promoted today as a corrective, green accounting is often portrayed as a pioneering intervention. Yet, green accounting is not new. This paper situates it within a genealogy of initiatives developed since the 1980s and assesses their potential to establish an infrastructure capable of supporting a post-growth transition or redirecting capital toward nature conservation. It argues that, across its various iterations, green accounting has consistently struggled to materialize as a genuine infrastructure for either purpose. Nevertheless, the promises it carries help pre-empt capitalism’s crisis of legitimacy in the face of mounting socio-ecological crises.