The commodity breakdown table and graphs show the first level of breakdown of the total macro figures. This is where you begin to drill down into more specific detail of your organisation’s performance. Commodity breakdown provides a meso level of detail.

Issue addressed by this output

This output addresses the questions:

• Which inputs to my organisation carry the greatest TBL impact?
• What is the major contributor to each of our chosen indicators?

Underlying calculation

The software breaks down your total impacts into components of your expenditure, that is, your operating inputs. It allocates all impacts throughout the supply chain to MyBakery (i.e. you) and to your suppliers.

The first row of the commodity breakdown chart shows the indicators that you have chosen to investigate, in this case: Greenhouse gas emissions; Employment; Water use.

The first column of the chart shows the ranking of inputs according to impact. A ranking of 1 means that, in MyBakery, this commodity (i.e. this operating input or product group) has the highest impact on the particular indicator in question (e.g. Fresh meat has the highest impact on total greenhouse gas emissions).

The second column is the commodity (operating input/product group) that you are examining. Remember that these can either be called by the National Accounts category or else you can substitute something that makes more sense to your company (e.g. Fresh meats could mean red meat and bacon and ham in MyBakery).

The third column is the total impact of that commodity on the indicator in question (e.g. Fresh meat contributes a total of 0.63 employment years to MyBakery’s total employment). According to the chart for example, out of 36.9 ML of water use (i.e. total, see bottom row of table) 6.76 ML is embodied in producing vegetables; or out of 17.2 jobs created by the activities of MyBakery 0.5 of a job is indirectly created through the purchase of vegetables while 14.9 jobs are created directly within the company.

This is repeated for all of the indicators that MyBakery has chosen to address. Notice that the ranking changes according to which indicator you are dealing with. Most of the employment years created by MyBakery’s business are created onsite (i.e. they are MyBakery’s direct employees) however most of the greenhouse gas emissions come from the purchase of meat and meat products.

Visualisation: Commodity Histogram

This histogram shows where, and how much, employment is embodied in the business dealings of MyBakery.

Reading the histogram
You can see at a glance that the onsite employment generated by MyBakery itself is the leading contributor to employment in MyBakery’s business dealings. The purchase of fresh meat is the next largest contributor.

Using the output

Scenario 1
The Company Director wants to document the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that have been achieved through changes in procurement policies and to highlight where further changes could be made to best advantage. He has asked you to find an appropriate way to demonstrate any change and identify where further changes could be made.

You produce a commodity breakdown and histogram for the indicator Greenhouse gas emissions and demonstrate that this can be used as the company’s benchmark. You point out that it shows most of your emissions are embodied in the fresh meat that you buy. You discuss what alternatives there might be.

Scenario 2
Your company is engaged in Corporate Sustainability Reporting (CSR), because of compliance obligations, not to mention pressure from consumers, insurers, employees, stakeholders and the media!

You disclose your overall impacts on the environment, society and economy. However, investors’ requests for transparency on ethical standards are driving the socially responsible investment (SRI) movement to probe deeper.

Your company is being screened by managing bodies of SRI portfolios not only for your own products, but also for your upstream and downstream involvement in harmful or unethical production practices.

Your company has a high proportion of purchased inputs and you want to manage any potential risks from economic, environmental and social impacts in the supply-chain. There could be financial risk from doing business with some of those upstream companies.

Your company decides to extend responsibility beyond its premises into the supply-chain network. Decision-makers decide not only to target on-site impacts, but also indirect impacts. Abatement is achieved through on-site measures and procurement policies that are streamlined and prioritised according to the information gained from the Commodities Breakdown table. These techniques assist in answering vital management questions such as ‘which of our suppliers has the greatest impact on our sustainability performance?’

Next: Commodity Graphs