Source: BusinessGreen

Sports brand PUMA should write a natural capital accounting “cookbook” to help other businesses replicate its environmental profit and loss statement (EP&L).

That is just one of the conclusions from a new independent analysis of PUMA’s pioneering environmental accounting tool, which aims to place a monetary figure on the environmental impact of its entire value chain.

When PUMA first unveiled the accounts last year, carbon reporting experts hailed its ambition and predicted it could prompt others to follow suit, despite some questions raised about the validity of aspects of the reporting and the final figures.

Now PUMA’s parent company PPR has moved to answer some of those questions as it seeks to extend the reach of the EP&L initiative, publishing an expert review of the programme.

Panellists who contributed to the review include a chief economist at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), sustainability academics, senior employees of PUMA, PPR and accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Trucost, which developed the EP&L.

Overall, the analysts restated their support for the EP&L as a major step forward for sustainability accounting, noting that the methodology used was largely accurate and capable of helping the company make decisions effective based on the results.

However, they also urged PUMA to standardise the methods to ensure other companies adopted the EP&L and to help PPR improve the process. For example, they warned that other businesses would be unlikely to adopt the method at its current level of complexity and urged PUMA to simplify the methodology.

They also urged PUMA to develop a “cookbook” to guide businesses through the process of developing an EP&L, which in turn would allow the accounts to be more readily used for decision making.

Their recommendations echoed those of PUMA’s chief executive earlier this year, who said the company wanted to expand the tool to a global scale and create a standardised green “calorie count” system, which would allow consumers to measure the lifecycle impact of their purchases from any sector.

Experts also highlighted a number of ways in which PUMA could improve its methods to deliver more accurate results, including increasing the amount of data gathered and measuring water pollution, as well as emissions.

PUMA and PPR said it would now look at ways of incorporating the recommendations as part of its efforts to scale up the EP&L.