Method and system for calculating an environmental score for a business unit

• US 7,797,183 B2
• Filed: 05/28/2004
• Issued: 09/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: S&P Trucost Ltd. (S&P Global Inc.)
• Original Assignee: S&P Trucost Ltd. (S&P Global Inc.)
• Inventors: Thomas, Simon, Manji, Rafiq, Jacobs, Andrew, Dias, Daniel Lopez
• Primary Examiner(s): Zeender; F. Ryan
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHAAWAT, MUSSA A
• Application Number:
  US10/857,633
• Publication Number:
  US 20050021389A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,300 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/7.39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

A method and system for calculating an environmental score are described and generally related to calculating a score for a separately accountable business unit, where the score is indicative of external costs for the business unit. A computer system for calculating a score for a separately accountable business unit, the score being indicative of a level of unaccounted for external environmental cost of economic activities of the separately accountable business unit, the system includes accessing means for accessing accounts data indicative of recognized costs for the separately accountable business unit, accounts processing means for processing the accounts data by adding external environmental costs to the recognized costs and for calculating the score for the separately accountable business unit using the processed accounts data.

Claims

1. A computer system for calculating a score for a separately accountable business unit, the computer system comprising:

a program memory storing code for controlling a processor;

a score memory storing the score for the separately accountable business unit, the score being indicative of impact on the environment as a consequence of the economic activities of the separately accountable business unit; and

a processor connected to the program memory for reading and being controlled by the code;

wherein the program memory stores;

accessing code for controlling the processor to access financial account data indicative of recognized costs for the separately accountable business unit;

financial account processing code for controlling the processor to process the financial account data by adding external environmental costs to the recognized costs to calculate the score for the separately accountable business unit using the processed financial account data, and to store the calculated score in the score memory, wherein the external environmental costs comprise costs required to preserve the environment as a consequence of the economic activities of the separately accountable business unit; and

supplier score accessing code for accessing scores indicative of environmental impact for suppliers of at least one of goods and services to the separately accountable business unit;

wherein said supplier score accessing code includes supplier account data, and supplier score determining code for determining scores for the suppliers using the account data and environmental information, and said financial account processing code is adapted to process the account data using scores accessed for the suppliers.

2. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said financial account processing code is adapted to process the financial account data and calculate the score by taking the ratio of the recognized costs to total costs comprising recognized costs plus external environmental costs.

3. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said accessing code is adapted to access financial account data indicative of recognized costs and profit or loss for the separately accountable business unit, and said financial account processing code is adapted to process the financial account data also using the profit or loss.

4. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said financial account processing code is adapted to process the financial account data by allocating common price units to all the inputs to and outputs from the economic activities of the separately accountable business unit.

5. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said financial account processing code is adapted to process the financial account data to identify and weight costs associated with suppliers using the scores for the suppliers.

6. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said accessing code is adapted to assign a precautionary score to a supplier if suppliers financial account data is not available, where said precautionary score indicates a high level of unaccounted for external environmental cost.

7. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said accessing code is adapted to assign a precautionary score to a supplier if environmental information for the supplier is not available, where said precautionary score indicates a high level of unaccounted for external environmental cost.

8. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said financial account processing code is adapted to calculate the score to vary between a first value indicating the business unit has internalized all external environmental costs associated with its economic activity and a second value indicating that the business unit has large external environmental costs associated with its economic activity.

9. The computer system according to claim 2, wherein said financial account processing code is adapted to calculate the score as a percentage between 100% indicating the business unit has internalized all environmental costs associated with its economic activity and close to 0% indicating that the business unit has large external environmental costs associated with its economic activity.

10. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein said separately accountable business unit comprises:

a business including a partnership, person, charity, or company,

department or division of a business,

a service or product,

or group of services or products.

11. The computer system according to claim 1, including external environmental cost determining code for determining the external environmental costs for the separately accountable business unit as a function of economic inputs and economic outputs for the separately accountable business unit.

12. The computer system according to claim 11, wherein said external environmental costs determining code is adapted to determine external environmental costs for the economic inputs as a function of the recognized costs for the economic inputs and external environmental costs for the economic outputs as a function of the recognized costs for the economic outputs.

13. The computer system according to claim 12, wherein said external environmental cost determining code is adapted to determine said external environmental costs for the economic inputs as by weighting the recognized costs for the economic inputs by an environmental input cost weight and said environmental costs for the economic outputs by weighting the recognized costs for the economic output by an environmental output cost weight.

14. The computer system according to claim 1, including a network interface for interfacing to a network to allow access to the calculated score from a remote computer.

15. The computer system according to claim 14, wherein said network interface is adapted to receive the financial account data for the business unit, and said accessing code is adapted to access the received financial account data.

16. A storage medium storing computer code for controlling a computer to calculate a score for a separately accountable business unit, the code stored in the storage medium comprising:

accessing code for controlling the computer to access financial account data indicative of recognized costs for the separately accountable business unit;

financial account processing code for controlling the computer to process the financial account data by adding external environmental costs to the recognized costs to calculate a score for the separately accountable business unit using the processed financial account data, and to store the calculated score in a score memory, wherein;

the score is indicative of impact on the environment as a consequence of economic activities of the separately accountable business unit; and

the external environmental costs comprise costs required to preserve the environment as a consequence of the economic activities of the separately accountable business unit; and

supplier score accessing code for accessing scores indicative of environmental impact for suppliers of goods and/or services to the separately accountable business unit;

wherein said accessing code includes supplier accounts data acquisition code for acquiring suppliers accounts data, and supplier score determining code for determining the scores for the suppliers using the accounts data and environmental information, and said accounts processing code is adapted to process the accounts data using scores accessed for the suppliers.