The benchmarks used in evaluating investments' performance are represented by overall indexes like NASDAQ, or industry specific indexes. Business practice has revealed that economic performance is significantly influenced by environmental and social performance. Therefore, it is important that companies include this indicator in their sustainability reports to stakeholders.

Production costs

This indicator is of great interest to stakeholders like investors, awarding authorities, banks that finance companies in different projects they develop, project developers, and others. This indicator is used in analyzing direct investments. It is of great importance in industries where production costs are quite large. This is the case of the construction industry, the automotive industry, the oil and gas industry, and others.

International organizations that establish standards in environmental sustainability state that companies should assess life cycle costs in order to make their decisions, it seems that the evaluation of production costs tends to be preferred by these...
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