Indicators of Sustainable Production: A New Tool for Promoting Business Sustainability

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Abstract
This paper proposes a new tool for promoting business sustainability—indicators of sustainable production. It discusses the business case for sustainable development and introduces the concept of sustainable production as a way to equally address different aspects of production (environmental and occupational, social and economic). Indicators are suggested as a tool for operationalizing this concept and their objectives, scope, and desirable qualities are outlined. The paper concludes with some recommendations for developing indicators of sustainable production. In the not too distant future, a new global framework will govern the measurement and reporting of corporate social, environmental and economic performance—the three dimensions of business sustainability. Companies will routinely report on key aspects of their social and environmental performance, just as they currently report their financial performance. Standardized metrics will emerge and be adopted by both business and others outside firms [1, p. 1].