PhD Dissertation: Comprehensive in-supply chain life cycle assessment of the preventative cost-based externalities of products.

A major part of environmental, social and economic damage in the world is caused during manufacturing, trade, use and disposal of products. As long this damage remains unpaid and consumers keep preferring the cheapest products, no major improvements may be expected. Therefore, various economists point to a real price economy as a solution, which makes the extra price for the sustainable version of a product a perfect measure of its sustainability.
This thesis provides a system, which enables companies to maintain a standardized bookkeeping of the hidden extra costs of preventing the damage, next and similar to standard economic bookkeeping, and transfer these as “Eco Social Cost Units” (ESCU’s) along the supply chain. At the end of the supply chain, the extra costs for the sustainable version of the product are obtained. It proved possible to include all product related environmental, social and economic sustainability aspects, listed in the 17 sustainable development goals, defined by the United Nations. This tool enables companies to assess both the economic costs and the hidden extra surcharge for the sustainable version of their suppliers’ products in an equal way, and together make their choices towards sustainability.
Because well-defined reference points were required to define what actually is sustainable or responsible business, some important questions were studied and answered in published articles, especially:

1. What is a fair minimum wage?
2. What is acceptable as fair income inequality?
3. How to measure the required costs for preventing corruption?