Corporate sustainability footprints-a review of current practices

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the footprint debate by providing a systematic review of footprint concepts that can be used on the corporate or organizational level. This may take us one step further towards the conceptualization of lesser used footprints and their integration into sustainability management accounting. Based on the systematic review process seven different footprint concepts emerged that can be used at the organizational level (ecological, carbon, environmental, water, nitrogen, ethical and social footprints). These concepts are very diverse regarding scope and methodological explicitness, however, they offer an opportunity for organizations to tackle, monitor and communicate their sustainability performance on the organizational level. Five of the reviewed organizational footprint concepts are related to the environmental while two to the social domain of sustainability. As highlighted by the review, there seems to be no footprint concept going beyond one single dimension of sustainable development. This means that the interrelationships between the environmental, social and economic performance are not grasped by any of the introduced concepts, making them unsuitable for a comprehensive sustainability assessment. For this reason, integrating different corporate footprint concepts may be one important field of future research.