An Extended Sustainable Strategic Costing Model for Circular Value in the Meat Processing Industry

Moving from external treatment to internal recovery of a meat processing enterprise’s own animal by-products (ABPs) has interconnected production, economic, and environmental implications. This study develops and applies an extended sustainable strategic costing (SSC) model to assess these implications. It integrates activity-based costing, material flow cost accounting, cost of quality, and life cycle costing with joint cost allocation, investment appraisal, and a limited operational emissions assessment. A shared material balance, distinct analytical scopes, and rules for preventing double counting of financial effects connect the methods. Recorded production and accounting data are supplemented with calculated values and explicit assumptions. Revenue from meat and bone meal and animal fat covers 99.76% of their full cost. Over ten years at 7%, the ex ante appraisal yields a standalone net present value of EUR 3.23 million and a comparative value of EUR 14.42 million, including avoided cash outflows for external treatment. Comparative investment advantage persists across the tested parameter changes. The conditional external-treatment emissions threshold is 0.034264 t CO2e/t of own input, with differences in system boundaries considered. The model provides traceable resource, economic, and emissions information for assessing management decisions on circular ABP recovery.