Economic Benefit Assignment in Environmental Cost Allocation: Toward a Suggestion Model

This paper aims to suggest a model to reward a ‘dirty product’ which has the potential to offer sales promotion services to other ‘clean products’ in a multiple product firm. The paper suggests a model – economic benefit assignment (EBA) for apportionment of direct waste costs where a polluting product offers a sales promotion benefit to other ‘clean products’ of the same company, which proposes that benefiting products should be assigned a proportion of the direct waste cost of the polluting product (as a service charge) based on the proportion of promotion benefit (sales benefit) received from the polluting product. The idea is that, based on transfer pricing theory, such promotion service would be paid for, if offered by an outside agent. Whilst academic debate is expected to ensue from this suggestion model, further case research is imperative to demonstrate industrial applicability.