A system and method can support a compensation work. The system includes one or more compensation functions that use a process state to realize the compensation work associated with a forward work, wherein the compensation work is executed at a different runtime from an execution time of the forward work, and wherein the process state contains data needed to execute the compensation work. The system also includes a process execution engine that can dynamically manage process state to make the state available to the compensation functions. The process state is retrieved based on a closure data structure that holds an expression and an environment of variable bindings, in which the expression is to be evaluated.