Title: Indicators' selection method for implementation of sustainability reports in agro-industrial cooperatives

Authors: Bianca Carina Valente; Gislaine Camila Lapasini Leal; Antonio Marco-Ferreira; Syntia Lemos Cotrim

Addresses: Department of Production Engineering, State University of Maringá, Brazil ' Department of Production Engineering, State University of Maringá, Brazil ' Department of Production Engineering, Federal University of Paraná – UTFPR, Londrina, Brazil ' Department of Production Engineering, State University of Maringá, Brazil

Abstract: This work aims to propose a method to select sustainability indicators (SIs) that are most pertinent to the activities of agro-industrial cooperatives, through the study of sustainability reports in the global reporting initiative (GRI) model. The method is composed of three stages: study the report model, analyse the field of application, and select SIs that best suits the agro-industrial sector. For the selection of SI, three criteria were applied: frequency of appearance, approach to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and applicability. As a result of this study, 42 selected indicators were obtained within the economic, environmental, and social aspects. The main contribution of this paper is the systematisation of a method to select SIs aligned to the activities of agro-industrial cooperative. Another contribution is that selected indicators, also address SDGs, showing their relevance to the sustainability theme. The method was elaborated having agroindustry companies in a cooperative system, as case study. The proposed method is generic enough to be applied to other sectors that are interested in adopting the sustainability report model in the GRI criteria. The case study constitutes a guide for other companies in the process of selecting SIs.

Keywords: sustainability; sustainability indicators; global reporting initiative; GRI; Sustainable Development Goal; SGD; agro-industrial cooperative.

DOI: 10.1504/LAJMSD.2021.121070

Latin American Journal of Management for Sustainable Development, 2021 Vol.5 No.2, pp.170 - 190

Received: 27 Nov 2020
Accepted: 19 Oct 2021
Published online: 23 Feb 2022 *