Sustainability assessment tools – their comprehensiveness and utilisation in company-level sustainability assessments in Finland

ABSTRACT

Companies have a central role in the transition towards more sustainable economic systems, as they are one of the major sources of environmental impacts, economic activity and social development. Various tools are available to support sustainability assessments, but there is little information on how suitable they are for company-level assessments and how companies use them in real-life applications. The article examines some of the commonly used tools and the utilisation of these tools in Finnish companies. A sample of seven tools was compiled: multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), material flow analysis, life cycle assessment (LCA), input–output models, sustainability indicators and indices, cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and optimisation methods. MCDA, LCA, CBA and optimisation methods were found to be successful with respect to many of the criteria used in the evaluation, but none of them was comprehensive. The assessment indicates that MCDA has the greatest potential to be successfully applied to support sustainability assessment, but solely applying MCDA is not suggested, since MCDA needs input from other tools and methods, in order to have reliable impact assessments. Finnish companies regularly employ sustainability criteria and indices, and a few construction companies had applied LCA, but utilisation of other tools was rare. The findings indicate that the tools frequently discussed in research are not actually used by companies. Expert-driven sustainability trials and user-friendly, simplified tools could be a solution to issues of accessibility in real-world applications.

KEYWORDS:

• Companies
• comprehensiveness
• sustainability assessment tools
• sustainability reporting
• decision analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was conducted as part of the Towards sustainable economic systems – key methods and tools, lessons learnt and future outlooks (ToFu) – project funded by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE). In addition, the study was supported by the research project “Sustainable, climate-neutral and resource-efficient forest-based bioeconomy”, funded by the Academy of Finland, Strategic Research Council (decision no 293380).