Define the true cost accounting

Reference no: EM133448459 , Length: Words Count:1500

Assignment:

Aim / Purpose

According to Douglas Gayeton, True Cost Accounting (TCA) is 'a practice that accounts for all external costs - including environmental, social and economic - generated by the creation of a product.' The external costs mentioned here are those incurred by an uninvolved party.

True Cost Accounting is thought to be a useful tool in revealing hidden costs, and as such, helpful in the decision making for effective policy and responsible consumption.

This assignment will help us better understand the actual costs of the consumer goods that we purchase by considering the external costs not factored into the price of those goods at the time of purchase.

Instructions

Part 1 - Theory
(500)

Research, define and compose about the history of the TCA concept (do NOT use the resource linked above!)
Please connect the TCA approach to Garrett Hardin's 'Tragedy of the Commons'. Be sure to define the Tragedy of the Commons before connecting it TCA.

Part 2 - Benefits and Challenges

(500)

Please research and compose about at least 2 benefits and 2 challenges of this tool (4 total). If TCA is thought to be a useful tool for the discovery of hidden costs, how is it also being used in a practical sense? In doing so, please research and share 2 initiatives utilizing this tool.

Part 3 - Calculating True Cost

Please choose 1 of the 3 types of goods covered in the previous weeks of the course: fast fashion (Consumerism), smartphones (Consumerism), or food (Food and Agriculture).

Then, research the:

Environmental Cost (natural resources, waste/pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.)
Human Cost (inequality, human health, human life, fair pay, etc.)
Social/Cultural Cost (consumption behaviours, consumerism, etc.) of your chosen consumer goods.

Under each of these 3 categories, please compose about 2 hidden costs (6 total).

Part 4 - Conquest

(250)

Explain what revealing the hidden costs associated with your chosen good reveals to you about the way in which human's facilitate attempts to conquer the world around them? Look at this through a colonialism lens.
Then explain how and why your personal practices contribute to the issue.

Total 1500

Reference no: EM133448459

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