Small business social responsibility and sustainability metrics: a focus on environmental performance measurement and waste

Going beyond research on corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues in global supply chains, this paper takes a practical look at how small business social responsibility and sustainability issues can be meaningfully measured, especially from the perspective of small and medium sized enterprises. Taking a particular focus on the environmental aspects of social responsibility and sustainability, the chapter will provide guidance in terms of principles of environmental performance measurement and offers a general overview of two outstanding sustainable supply chain assessment tools. Our empirically based illustrative case suggests that metrics for waste management in small British companies are likely to provide better information about quality of waste management and its impact when they are: a) collected by stream of waste identifying total weight and waste management solution; b) analysed using relative, context based and impact-weighted indicators.