The contribution of life cycle assessment to global sustainability reporting of organizations

Abstract

PurposeAims to investigate the contribution of life cycle assessment to global sustainability reporting of organizations.Design/methodology/approachAssesses the current state of global sustainability reporting and points out future trends of reporting within the three dimensions of economy, environment and society.FindingsThe internal and external communication of the corporate performance is a very important company way to sustainable development. The communication of the corporate performance comprises the strategic and operational goals, the corporate performance data on inventory level, the translation of the inventory data to sustainability core indicators as well as the performance evaluation in terms of sustainability. The future trends on policy level and in customer demands are moving towards a product‐related consideration of sustainability issues, the inclusion of indirect effects over the life cycle in addition to the site‐related effects of companies’ activities, the analysis of results on impact level as well as the automation of data administration.Originality/valueThe methodology of life cycle assessment (LCA) provides the main starting‐point for global sustainability reporting including the emerging future trends in this context. This paper shows that results of impact assessments as central parts of an LCA are a good basis for creating significant indicators for sustainability reports.