Prioritization of sustainability indicators using regression analysis: A case study

Abstract

Abstract Sustainability helps us satisfy to the current needs without obstructing future generations to meet their demands. The idea of sustainability is composed of three pillars - economic, environmental and social, also known as triple bottom-line of sustainability. Sustainability emerged as a part of corporate ethics in response to perceived public discontent over the long-term harm originated by the focus on short-term gains. This study focuses on determining the influence of various sustainability indicators used by major Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies. The future for the FMCG sector is very bright due to its inherent capacity and favourable changes in the environment. The sustainability indicators namely CO2 emission, energy consumption, water consumption and the percentage of female employees have been examined in this study. The data was gathered from sustainability reports of the case companies, and classified based on the triple bottom-line of sustainability. Multivariate regression analysis approach was used to assess the influence of these indicators. Various models were tested by different hypothesis tests to understand the significance of the sustainability indicators in this study. The regression analysis suggests that among the four sustainability indicators namely total electricity consumption, total water consumption, total CO2 emission and female employee %,the indicator that does not affect the total production is female employee (%)