Application of a fuzzy hierarchical model to the assessment of corporate social and environmental sustainability

• Published in: Corporate social-responsibility and environmental management Vol. 18; no. 4; pp. 209 - 219
• Main Authors: Kouikoglou, Vassilis S., Phillis, Yannis A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.07.2011; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: cement industry; Corporate responsibility; Economics; Environmental impact; Fuzzy logic; Sensitivity analysis; Social responsibility; Studies; Sustainability; sustainability assessment; Sustainability management; Working conditions
• ISSN: 1535-3958; 1535-3966
• DOI: 10.1002/csr.241

Corporate responsibility has many facets. A corporation should organize its operations so that its environmental impact is minimal, its economic state is viable, labor conditions are good, and compliance with laws and regulations is satisfactory, among others. Corporate responsibility is intimately connected to corporate sustainability which expresses the economic, environmental, and social standing of a company. A responsible corporation embraces the principle of transparency of data pertaining to its performance and its policies and strives for strategies that enhance its sustainability. A model is presented that uses hierarchical fuzzy reasoning to assess corporate sustainability, given a number of inputs, called basic indicators. Inputs are normalized according to their sustainability status and then combined to obtain a sustainability index on [0, 1] for each facet of the corporation. A sensitivity analysis pinpoints the most important indicators affecting sustainability. Two case studies of multinational cement companies are presented in detail. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.