Organizational sustainability: composite index application on a chemical industry company

This paper aims to propose the use of a composite index to measure organizational sustainability in a multinational Brazilian chemical industry and assess its importance as management tool. The study is based on the methodology developed by Krajnc & Glavič (2005) that proposes a Composite Index of Sustainable Development - I_CDS, generated by aggregating multiple indicators of economic, environmental and social dimensions, in order to monitor sustainability performance of a particular company. After selection, the indicators related to the company strategic are normalized, weighted and aggregated comprising three subindex to, finally, be associated and generate a global index. The method was applied to Braskem, Brazil's largest chemical company, in which the composite index was calculated using the indicators reported by the company for four years, according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines for sustainability reporting. The indicators weighting was subsidized by the macro objectives of the company's vision, and the strategic indicators considered received comparatively higher weights. The model application results were considered satisfactory because, in addition to providing partial performance numbers for each dimension evaluated, the tool showed great flexibility in the stages of indicators selection, weighting and normalization, allowing its application in different contexts and businesses.

Sustainability indicators; Sustainability assessment model; Chemical industry; Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)