OSR: Overall Sustainability Ratio

The Overall sustainability ratio is the first indicator representing in a simple and clear way the environmental footprint of a company. It does not measure the overall impact on the products life cycle, it does measure the environmental impact of everyday operations inside the company.

OSR is the ratio between the volume sold in a period to the sum of resources employed and emissions of the same period. Normally data are expressed in units of weight.

Volume sold are kilos of finished parts sold to the customer in a period.

Resources employed are kilos of raw materials, components, consumables purchased for the same period.

Emissions are kilos of waste and carbon dioxide produced in the period.

OSR is made of three different ratios:

Emission Ratio: resources employed / emissions plus resources employed

Usage Ratio: resources employed minus wastes /resources employed

Quality ratio: volume sold / resources employed minus wastes

The indicator is similar to OEE, a measure many companies use to control the overall efficiency of their equipment. As in the case of OEE the maximum value of OSR is 100% which is reached by an ideal company without any environmental impact. The higher the value of OSR the lower the environmental impact of the company, with other words the higher the OSR the more resources become part of the end product sold and are not wasted.