Identifying Material and Energy Cost Categories of Forest...
Identifying Material and Energy Cost Categories of Forest Products Production Using Material Flow Cost Accounting
Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) is a method belonging to the general Environmental Management Accounting framework and it has been used mainly in the industry for increasing resource efficiency, cost savings, and minimization of environmental degradation. MFCA treats material losses (wastes and emissions) as one more output of the production process and assigns a cost on it. Thus, the managers can understand the material and money losses, something which is not the case in conventional cost accounting. The method has been standardized with the ISO14051 certification, and is now applied in several different sectors. However, its potential use is very wider compared to its current use. Indeed, there is a lack of applications in the service sector, in public services, or in the primary sector. Forest sector belongs to the latter and it may sometimes use significant quantities of energy and materials for the production of its outputs. Unfortunately, currently the forest managers are not able to understand such losses. In the present research, we focus on MFCA and its potential use to the main forest products, such as timber, or cultivated Christmas trees. We identify the main material and energy costs, and give examples of the differences between Material Flow Cost Accounting and its conventional counterpart, demonstrating the benefit for reduced material and energy resources and the protection of natural environment.