Unravelling the Impacts of Supply Chains—A New Triple-Bottom-Line Accounting Approach and Software Tool

Companies wishing to realise broader societal and environmental objectives often choose Triple-Bottom-Line (TBL) accounting as a reporting approach. TBL accounting covers social, economic and environmental indicators and thus enables decision-makers to quantify trade-offs between different facets of sustainability. Two issues are critical when considering TBL accounting. Firstly, indicators must include both the direct (on-site, immediate) effects of the company as well as the indirect (off-site, upstream, embodied) effects associated with purchasing from a potentially large and distant web of suppliers. The incorporation of all indirect or upstream impacts removes problems related to the choice of boundaries. Secondly, it is important to address the question of how to assign responsibility for the indirect impacts as these are shared between partners in a supply chain and must not be double-counted.

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