Developing a sustainability index for Mauritian manufacturing companies

It has been long recognized that environmental matters are important to the survival of manufacturing companies. Yet manufacturing companies continue to degrade the environment, over exploit natural resources and generate unmanageable amount of wastes. Manufacturing is not just about financial returns, but it should also be conscious of the long-term impacts on living standards of both present and future generations. The purpose of this paper is to develop a sustainability index to quantify the impact of Mauritian manufacturing activities on the environment. This research is an attempt to stimulate manufacturing companies in Mauritius to report their organization's sustainability via an index that shall aid in driving both profits and growth. It reviews the main social, economic and environmental issues affecting manufacturing companies and provides a Sustainability Index Model (SIM) that can be used as a sustainability performance measurement indicator, helping in the mitigation of perennial business challenges. The derived sustainability index, that combines the principal sustainable indicators quoted in the literature, has been used as a single decision-making tool for assisting manufacturing companies realize sustainable development goals. A sample of 30 large manufacturing companies in Mauritius were used to validate the sustainability index model. The study reveals an index with 9 environmental, 4 economic and 2 social indicators which were pertinent in sustainability measurement, with varying degree of importance, within the Mauritian manufacturing context.