Integration of external costs and environmental impacts in Material Flow Cost Accounting – A life cycle oriented approach

Description

This presentation shows three approaches which integrate external costs or environmental impacts into Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA). It is argued that the main criticism of MFCA is that the method only takes corporate internal costs into account, maintaining that this is sufficient for all companies that aim to improve internal efficiency from an economic perspective, but fails to consider the ecological perspective. For a more effective pursuit of environmental improvements, external environmental costs should also be included into MFCA. One possibility to consider external environmental effects or costs is the consolidation of MFCA and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Based on a comparison of MFCA and LCA, similarities and differences between the two methods are identified. Regarding the inclusion of external costs, the first approach integrates the process-based externals costs for emissions into the MFCA, whereas the second approach, which already includes a life cycle perspective, assesses material and energy flows by means of environmental impacts. The third and most elaborate approach combines both concepts and integrates the life cycle oriented external costs for emissions into MFCA. In the course of depicting these approaches, potential advantages and limitations are discussed.

Period	22 Mar 2013
Event title	EMAN-EU 2013 Conference “Material Flow Cost Accounting”
Event type	Conference
Location	GermanyShow on map