This classification of production costs should be further elaborated based on input of the farmers
and their decision-making process. As indicated in figure 3, three types of environmental costs
exist: conventional, private and societal. The acceptance of private and societal costs by the
participants and the magnitude of their responsibility will further influence the development of the
type of costs that will be included in the Management Accounting system.
Next to the definition and classification of costs to be used in the MAS, performance indicators
play a central role to support decision-making and control activities. A first classification of
indicators based on the aforementioned CSD classification of indicators is described in figure 6.
The sustainable indicators for the different scales of the coffee chain are based on several sources
of information, such as criteria for Eco-labelling schemes, conversations with participants in the
coffee chain and reports on coffee production.