The sweet spot in sustainability: a framework for corporate assessment in sugar manufacturing

Figures & data

Figure 1. The process of framework development.

Figure 2. A hierarchical framework of corporate sustainability assessment for sugar manufacturing.

Table 1. List of indicators belonging to each sub-criterion.

Sub-criteria	Indicators	Measurement units
Air emission	Rate of fossil fuels used by steam boilers relative to total amount of electricity produced per year (1)	kg/kWh or l/kWh
	Concentration of total suspended particulate (TSP) (2)	mg/m^3
Liquid effluent	Rate of water discharged into the environment relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (3)	m^3/t
Solid waste disposal	Rate of hazardous waste disposed of relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (4)	t/t
	Rate of non-hazardous waste disposed of relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (5)	t/t
Energy consumption	Rate of steam consumption relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (6)	t/t
	Rate of electricity consumption relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (7)	kWh/t
Water consumption	Rate of external water consumption relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (8)	m^3/t
Land used	Rate of areas of sugar manufacturing sites relative to a tonne of cane processed per year (9)	m^2/t
Management commitment to environmental protection	Management commitment to environmental protection	Qualitative evaluation (5 items)^*
Profit	Gross profit margin per year (10)	%
Market share	Percentage of market share based on the quantity of sugar produced per year (11)	%
Expenditure on environmental improvement and protection	Rate of expenditure on environmental improvement and protection per tonne of sugar produced per year (12)	Monetary unit/t
Expenditure on external social development	Rate of expenditure on external social development per tonne of sugar produced per year (13)	Monetary unit/t
Expenditure on process maintenance and improvement	Rate of expenditure on process maintenance and improvement per tonne of sugar produced per year (14)	Monetary unit/t
Expenditure on supplier support and improvement	Rate of expenditure on cane farming support and improvement per tonne of sugar produced per year (15)	Monetary unit/t
Expenditure on employee health and safety management	Rate of expenditure on employee health and safety management per tonne of sugar produced per year (16)	Monetary unit/t
Expenditure on employee training and education	Rate of expenditure on employee training and education per tonne of sugar produced per year (17)	Monetary unit/t
Loss from non-compliance with laws and regulations	Total amount of fines paid per year (18)	Monetary unit
	Total number of non-monetary sanctions and warnings per year (19)	Number
Supplier support and collaboration	Cane farmers support and collaboration	Qualitative evaluation (4 items)^*
Society and local community concerns	The number of complaints from the local community per year (20)	Number
	Social responsibility	Qualitative evaluation (1 items)^*
	Social development and participation	Qualitative evaluation (3 items)^*
Fairness on employee wages and benefits	Internal fairness on employee wages and benefits	Qualitative evaluation (3 items)^*
	External fairness on employee wages and benefits	Qualitative evaluation (3 items)^*
Employee involvement	Employee involvement and empowerment	Qualitative evaluation (4 items)^*
	Employee communication	Qualitative evaluation (2 items)^*
Employee health and safety	Rate of work-related accidents relative to the total working hours in the working schedule per year (21)	Number/hrs
	Percentage of working hours lost relative to the total working hours in the working schedule per year (22)	%
	Employee health and safety provision	Qualitative evaluation (10 items)^*
Employee training and education	Employee training and education provision	Qualitative evaluation (7 items)^*
Employee turnover	Annual employee turnover rate (23)	%
Conformance to international standards of business conduct	Conformance to international standards of business conduct	Qualitative evaluation (11 items)^*
Manufacturing productivity	The sugar yield at 96 POL – 10 CCS equivalent (adjusted kilograms of sugar produced per tonne of cane processed) (24)	kg/t
Internal quality failure	Percentage of reprocessing, derived from the weight of remelted sugar relative to total weight of the sugar produced per year (25)	%
Process stability	Percentage of production shutdowns, derived from the total hours of unplanned shutdowns relative to the total operating hours per year (26)	%
Raw material quality	Commercial Cane Sugar (CCS) (27)	CCS
Customer satisfaction	The number of customer complaints and product returns per year (28)	Number
Management commitment to quality	Management commitment to quality	Qualitative evaluation (5 items)^*

^* See Appendix 1.

Figure 3. A scatter plot of the mean distribution of the representativeness and practicality of the quantitative indicators.

Table 2. Cronbach’s alpha values for the qualitative indicators.

Qualitative indicators	Cronbach’s alpha
(1) Management commitment to environmental protection	0.89
(2) Social responsibility	n/a
(3) Social development and participation	0.85
(4) Internal fairness on employee wages and benefits	0.83
(5) External fairness on employee wages and benefits	0.84
(6) Employee involvement and empowerment	0.87
(7) Employee communication	0.74
(8) Employee health and safety provision	0.94
(9) Employee training and education provision	0.89
(10) Management commitment to quality	0.88
(11) Conformance to international standards of business conduct	0.93
(12) Cane farmers support and improvement	0.92