Data Sources for Environmental Life Cycle Costing in Network Organizations

Abstract

Environmental Life Cycle Costing (ELCC) is a summary of all costs related to the product life cycle that are covered directly by one or more entities engaged in this life cycle (e.g. by the supplier, producer, user or consumer as well as all persons involved in the “end of life” phase), increased by the costs of environmental impact. Its correct implementation depends on the quality of data. In assessing the quality of the data, such characteristics as unambiguity, objectivity, timeliness, time stamping, granularity, the occurrence of duplicate data, completeness, availability, precision, interpretability, integrity, and coherence, are taken into account. Thus, the quality of data depends largely on the sources of their acquisition. Due to the extensive information scope of the ELCC, data sources located in network organizations may be relevant. Significant problems are: identifying business processes performed in network organizations and recognizing the features of network organizations in order to improve the ELCC calculations. The aim of this paper is to identify the data sources for ELCC in network organizations. The obtained results can be used, for example, to calculate ELCC automatically by means of artificial intelligence tools.