Search Results (19)

Addressing the persistent challenges of low resource utilization efficiency and the difficulty in quantifying hidden costs within the beef cattle sector, this study proposes an integrated diagnostic methodology that couples Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) with Value Stream Mapping (VSM). Using a cohort of 1623 beef cattle finished in 2024 at the case study farm in Heilongjiang Province, China, the full life-cycle accounting reveals that hidden costs constitute 6.43% of total inputs. Attribution analysis further pinpoints two critical nodes: feed loss and bedding consumption, which account for 33.14% and 35.77% of negative product costs, respectively. Based on these diagnostics, two optimization strategies were devised: refined feed supply chain management and a recycled bedding system centered on the aerobic fermentation of cattle manure. Empirical estimates indicate that upgrading hardware facilities could reduce the feed loss rate to under 2%, yielding annual savings of ¥485,200. Furthermore, the bedding recycling system not only achieves zero waste discharge but also generates an average annual displacement income of ¥3.504 million, with an investment payback period of just 0.54 years. These findings demonstrate the efficacy of the coupled MFCA-VSM model in identifying environmental costs and unlocking economic potential, thereby providing an actionable pathway for the livestock industry’s transition toward more intensive and circular practices. Full article

The rapid growth of electric vehicles has increased the demand for lithium-ion batteries, highlighting the need for sustainable recycling of spent cathode materials. This study combines laboratory-scale leaching experiments and Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) to compare citric, tartaric, and succinic acids for recovering Ni, Co, Mn, and Li. Under optimized conditions, citric acid achieved leaching efficiencies of 81.66% (Li), 76.05% (Co), 91.46% (Ni), and 98.94% (Mn) at a cost of USD 6.50 per 10 g battery; tartaric acid reached 87.29% (Li), 80.52% (Co), 95.79% (Ni), and 99.65% (Mn) at USD 17.23 per 10 g battery; succinic acid yielded 87.05% (Li), 73.82% (Co), 86.27% (Ni), and 99.12% (Mn) at USD 4.11 per 10 g battery. MFCA shows acid consumption dominates costs, suggesting reagent optimization and recycling could reduce expenses. These results provide a cost-oriented laboratory-scale perspective for selecting organic acids, while industrial feasibility requires further evaluation of scale-up, reagent regeneration, and process optimization. Full article

There is a global demand for alternative energy sources away from unsustainable fossil fuels. The Conference of Parties (COP) 26 agreed that fossil fuels should be phased down; at COP27, anxiety about the cost and availability of energy was raised, and COP28 reiterated the phasedown of coal power. Solar technology in the form of perovskite solar cells is one such alternative energy source. This article considers the fabrication of the perovskite layer in a solar cell and postulates the extent to which material flow cost accounting (MFCA) could be used as a feasible costing method, among other things, to address material flows and waste reduction. Through MFCA, the monetary and physical flows of materials are identified and can be applied throughout the supply chain to facilitate affordability, from the extraction of the ore to the transportation and fabrication of the chemicals, manufacturing and distribution of the solar cell and panels, and, finally, the recycling of the panel. Informed by these observations, a conceptual framework for applying MFCA in fabricating the perovskite layer in the supply chain is developed based on sets of qualitative propositions. Future work will involve researching the processes involved in manufacturing solar cells, costing raw materials, energy flows, and solar cell manufacturing emissions. Full article

Industrial symbiosis (IS) involves transferring waste materials and/or energy flows between stakeholders to enhance resource efficiency and reduce environmental impacts. The success of these transactions depends on supply–demand matching, technical feasibility of waste integration into industrial processes, economic savings, and compliance with legal and environmental regulations. This paper presents a methodology for the technoeconomic assessment of IS projects, integrating material flow cost accounting (MFCA) and cost–benefit analysis (CBA) incorporating CAPEX and OPEX considerations. MFCA, traditionally used to identify hidden costs from inefficiencies, is adapted here to assess resource utilisation across industry networks. The methodology is applied to two real-world demo cases: a novel fertiliser production process in Escombreras (Spain), where IS focuses on process optimisation and by-product valorisation, and an IS process design in Frövi (Sweden), where CO₂ and residual energy flows are exchanged between industrial sectors. The results demonstrate the potential of MFCA-CBA integration to enhance decision making in IS implementation. In Spain, process optimisation led to a 50% reduction in operating costs, whereas, in Sweden, CO₂ reutilisation resulted in a 30% increase in resource efficiency. These findings highlight the economic and environmental benefits of IS and provide insights into cost allocation and pricing strategies. Full article

Traditionally, precious metals are processed by either lost-wax casting or the casting of semi-finished products followed by cold or hot working, machining, and surface finishing. Long process chains usually conclude in a high material input factor and a significant amount of new scrap to be refined. The maturing of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies is advantageous with regard to resources among other criteria by opening up new processing techniques like laser-based powder bed fusion (LPBF) for the production of near net shape metal products. This paper gives an insight into major advantages of the powder-based manufacturing of precious metal components over conventional methods focusing on product carbon footprints (PCF). Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) for selected applications show energy and mass flows and inefficient recoverable losses in detail. An extended MFCA approach also shows the greenhouse gas (GHG) savings from avoiding recoverable material losses and provides PCF for the products. The PCF of the precious metals used is based on a detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the refining process of end-of-use precious metals. In the best case, the refining of platinum from end-of-life recycling, for example, causes 60 kg CO_2e per kg of platinum. This study reveals recommended actions for improvements in efficiency and gives guidance for a more sustainable production of luxury or technical goods made from precious metals. This exemplary study on the basis of an industrial application shows that the use of AM leads to a carbon footprint of 2.23 kg CO_2e per piece in comparison with 3.17 kg CO_2e by conventional manufacturing, which means about a 30 percent reduction in GHG emissions and also in energy, respectively. Full article

Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) is an environmental management accounting method that allocates costs to material and energy flows through a process, thereby enabling a simultaneous reduction in environmental impacts alongside an improvement in business and economic efficiency. This study illustrates the versatility of MFCA beyond its usual application to existing production and manufacturing processes. In this paper, MFCA is used to assess the financial viability of two emerging recycling technologies, IRETA2 (Development and Evaluation of Recycling Routes to Recover Tantalum from Electronic Waste) and ReComp (Development of an Innovative, Economically and Ecologically Sensible Recycling Method for Metallised ABS and PC/ABS Composite Waste). These two projects differ in their process structure. Whilst IRETA2 is a strictly linear recycling process, ReComp consists of two process streams, split according to the treatment of its two material fractions. For both projects, the lab-scale experimental results were used to develop an MFCA model of the recycling process scaled at each project partner’s facilities. MFCA was utilised to calculate the projects’ overall profit or loss, the impact of the final products’ market conditions and processing rate (in the case of IRETA2), or machinery capacity (for ReComp) on the overall results. The results show that neither IRETA2 nor ReComp are financially viable based on the current output products’ market value and quantity produced. However, through a sensitivity analysis, it is demonstrated that IRETA2 could become financially viable if the processing rate or market conditions were to improve. Additionally, ReComp could become financially viable if there was an increase in machine capacity. Finally, this paper also explores possible implications of MFCA when applied to emerging recycling technologies on EU policy and strategy, particularly those related to the EU Green Deal, such as extended producer responsibility and supply chain acts. Full article

With the development trend and technological progress of lithium batteries, the battery market is booming. This means that the demand for lithium batteries has increased significantly, resulting in a large number of discarded lithium batteries. The consumption of plenty of lithium batteries may lead to the scarcity and expending of relevant raw material metal resources, as well as serious heavy metal environmental pollution. Therefore, it is of great significance to recycle valuable metal resources from discarded lithium batteries. The proper recycling of these valuable metals can reduce the shortage of mineral resources and environmental hazards caused by a large number of scrapped vehicle batteries. Recently, different systematic approaches have been developed for spent lithium battery recovery. However, most of these approaches do not account for the hidden costs incurred from various processing steps. This work is determined by the concept of material flow cost accounting (MFCA). Hence, in this research, a MFCA-based approach is developed for the leaching process of spent lithium batteries recovery, taking into consideration the hidden costs embedded in process streams. In this study, hydrochloric acid had the worst leaching efficiency due to its high solid-to-liquid ratio and the lowest acid concentration, so it was excluded in the first stage selection. It takes TWD 16.03 and TWD 24.10 to leach 10 g of lithium battery powder with sulfuric acid and nitric acid, respectively. The final sulfuric acid was the acid solution with the highest leaching efficiency and relatively low cost among inorganic acids. Full article

Material flow cost accounting (MFCA) represents an innovative tool to identify inefficiencies in the use of resources in agribusiness, measuring either mass flows or costs incurred along the entire supply chain. The purpose of the article is to estimate the meso-level ecological and economic impacts of food loss and waste in the Italian salty snack sector before and during the COVID-19 lockdown by applying MFCA. Furthermore, in the light of the European Commission Delegated Decision 2019/1597, it aims to assess whether MFCA is a suitable tool to support food waste management along the entire food supply, discussing implications for researchers, academics and managers, as well as for public authorities. The research explores potato chip production from the agricultural stage (either considering plant cultivation and harvest) to the final consumption stage. The functional unit is 1 ton of unpackaged chips produced. The Italian lockdown spurred an intense upsurge in snacking activities (i.e., the consumption of salty snacks), justifying the need to investigate an agri-food segment often overlooked from an economic, resources and waste management perspective. It emerges that the “chips system” generates production valued at EUR 461 million (78%) and costs associated with food loss and waste that exceed EUR 131 million (22%), revealing an economically important potential for savings through a reduction in undesirable negative material flows, or through the valorization of previously hidden material losses according to circular economy paradigms. This suggests that the company-level adoption of appropriate material and financial accounting systems could enhance both internal savings and collective benefits towards sustainable resources and waste management. Full article

Goldmining contributes substantially to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Zimbabwean economy through revenue generated from exports, however it also incurred numerous challenges to the environment. Amongst others, these challenges embody ecological degradation; water and air pollution; and depletion of natural resources. In this paper, we establish the effects of mining operations on the environment through a comprehensive literature review, and how the integration of environmental management accounting practices (EMAPs) such as material flow cost accounting (MFCA), life cycle costing (LCC), and activity-based costing (ABC) could be integrated into a conceptual framework to address environmental challenges. EMAPs were chosen as they generate both physical and monetary data, which could promote transparency in material usage within the goldmining sector. Our analyses revealed a substantial body of literature on separate and individual EMAPs, yet very little was found on the integration of EMAPs. The main contribution of this work is the development of an integrated conceptual EMAPs framework on the strength of sets of qualitative propositions, aimed at promoting green goldmining for Zimbabwe as a developing economy. Future work would involve the validation of the framework among key stakeholders in the Zimbabwean goldmining industry. Full article

In the process of production and operation of family farms, a large amount of agricultural waste, such as livestock and poultry manure, has not been effectively treated in time, causing serious pollution to the environment. Moreover, livestock and poultry manure are the kind of resources that can be recycled to fertilize crops, which can benefit family farms both economically and environmentally. Adoption of manure biogas digesters by family farms can improve sustainability by not only decreasing input use and resource losses, but also reducing environmental pollution. Additionally, Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) is considered to be the most representative environmental management accounting tool. MFCA can be expanded to account for and calculate environmental damages, so as to better reflect the economic and environmental sustainability of agricultural systems. According to the basic principles of material flow cost accounting and characteristics of family farms, we propose an agricultural-waste-recycling model for Chinese family farms that is based on the extended MFCA in this paper. We first investigate Chinese family farms in Hunan Province, and then optimize an agricultural-waste-recycling model by extended MFCA. Finally, based on our proposed model, we make a two-dimensional analysis on the internal resource cost and external environment damages for agricultural-waste recycling. Our analysis shows that visualization of monetization of resource losses can optimize manure recycling through better decision-making, which can increase the sustainability of family farms. Full article

The textiles and garment industry plays an important role in Thailand’s economic growth, despite facing competition in product quality and rising production costs. Meeting diverse consumer needs and satisfaction has become increasingly difficult, as environmental issues become a major concern for firms internationally. Entrepreneurs require sophisticated strategic management techniques to maintain organizational productivity. Growing industries generate material losses, while negatively impacting the environment. Companies may account for their waste, but in reality, actual productivity is much lower, since hidden wastes are mostly unaccounted for and unquantified. A key barrier to reducing waste is that potential cost savings by revising waste management processes are not calculated. To solve this problem, material flow cost accounting (MFCA) was introduced to reduce negative product costs in a ladies’ lingerie company by identifying and evaluating the quantity and cost of concealed material waste. An effective meta-heuristic called the Two-Dimensional Cutting Stock Problem—Tabu Search algorithm (2DCSP-TS) was then proposed based on the idea of finding a layout that minimized a bin length. The multi-phase arrangement strategy embedded in it can obtain near-optimal conditions for solving realistic-sized problems. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, numerical experimental results were compared with those of the current practice. From the numerical experiments, it was found that the proposed technique is an efficient method for reducing negative product costs. Full article

Companies are gradually becoming conscious about the necessity of reducing their environmental impact and adopting low-carbon strategies in order to cope with increasing institutional and social demands. However, remaining competitive while reducing the environmental impact and improving the corporate image requires adopting sophisticated mechanisms boosting eco-efficiency and keeping costs tight. Material Flows Cost Accounting (MFCA) is an instrument that allows the monitoring of, measurement of, and accounting for physical and monetary processes along the production process. If extended to the supply chain, and applied to the energy usage and CO₂ emissions, it allows one to account for the Carbon Footprint (CF) of a company and its products at any given stage of the value chain. The current paper presents a case study developed under the framework of a three-year project to introduce an energy use and carbon emissions monitoring and accounting system in a large winery company in Spain, based on the MFCA approach and CF accountability. Including the supply chain of the company and the whole farming cycle of its main input, the case study presents the method and phases adopted to implement the project, its direct and indirect results and outcomes, and the conclusions that can be extracted, which may be inspirational for practitioners and scholars envisaging similar projects. Full article

We identified the deficiency in the conventional accounting system in capturing water-loss-related information and its effect on cost-saving decisions in a water utility in South Africa. We employed the material flow cost accounting (MFCA) model in the case of the Doorndraai Water Treatment Scheme to highlight inefficient phases of the water purification processes for the manager to identify opportunities for corrective action. Findings reveal that the inability of the conventional accounting system in accurately capturing water loss information limits the scheme manager’s ability to recognize cost-saving opportunities. Consequently, we found that the implementation of the material flow cost accounting (MFCA) model identified the pumping process as a major contributor to the water scheme’s daily operating loss because of the pumping machine’s low capacitor. Besides, this pumping machine has been in operation for about five years, an indication that the water scheme had been operating at a loss daily for a number of years. Thus, we suggested that the water scheme should invest in procuring a more suitable pumping device to reduce the huge electricity cost incurred daily by the Doorndraai Water Treatment Scheme. Besides this, the paper extended the implementation of the MFCA by providing an example of how the managerial accounting system can support environmental and economic sustainability in water purification processes. Thus, we reiterate that one way of effectively managing water resources is to appropriately capture the volume of water loss and water-purification-related costs to improve its efficiency. Full article

The South African coalmining industry has a rich and long history and contributes significantly to the economic wellbeing of the country. Despite its importance in developing the economy, the industry is causing severe environmental challenges. For example, Emalahleni, a city situated in the Mpumalanga Province in South Africa, has been exposed for over a century to the continuous mining of coal. Challenges experienced include the sterilisation of land due to underground fires, water pollution, surface collapse, and acidification of topsoil. Previous work by the researchers formulated a conceptual framework aimed at addressing some of these challenges. In an extension of this work, the authors comprehensively enhance the preliminary framework on the strength of a set of qualitative propositions coupled with a parallel, exploratory survey. Interviews among various stakeholders were conducted, aimed at enhancing the components of the framework, followed by a focus group to validate the associations among the components of the framework. Aspects reinforced by the survey findings include the role of environmental management accounting, tools like material-flow cost accounting and life-cycle costing, and regulatory and accountability aspects. New aspects elicited from the interviews and the focus group include stakeholder education and training with respect to the value of environmental management accounting for the coalmining industry; adherence to risk management linked to environmental challenges; advanced technologies, for example, financial modelling; and an improved understanding of waste management aspects around acid mine drainage, volatile organic components, CO₂ emissions, and post-mine closure. The novelty of the work lies in the approach taken to address coalmining challenges. Previous authors concentrated mostly on scientific and engineering aspects, while this research looks at it from an accounting perspective using environmental management accounting tools to address these challenges. Full article

This study aims to provide a better understanding of material flow cost accounting (MFCA) application in developing countries, which are characterized by rapid structure transformation leading to serious environmental problems. By systematically reviewing the existing literature, our analysis of 28 studies from nine developing countries (China, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam) shows that MFCA research has primarily focused on Asian developing countries. Moreover, while the use of MFCA is often associated with improving eco-efficiency, the reviewed studies also indicate a high relevance for strategic decision-making processes within organizations. Finally, one of the key challenges in MFCA application reported in developing country studies lies in existing accounting systems with limited data availability and insufficient cost allocation. Based on our findings and gaps identified in the MFCA literature, we suggest paths for further research, including the necessity of quantitative research and comparative analysis of MFCA application across countries, the further investigation of MFCA application in small and medium-sized enterprises as well as in various manufacturing and service sectors in developing countries. Full article