From directives to Impact: Unraveling the EU's legal sustainability maze and the role of full cost account methodologies in aiding businesses navigate it

Sustainability has never been a hotter topic than in today's modern society. Professionals in the field are getting increasingly pressured by demands from private, public and civil actors. While trying to navigate this maze, they are bombarded by ever more stringent legislative requirements, along with a plethora of tools, guidelines, and standards, which compete for their uptake and vow to be the leading supporting mechanism. When considering the strong interconnection between sustainability issues and the economy, namely with the current patterns of production (Croes & Vermeulen, 2015), full cost accounting methodologies are particularly suitable. After working in the research team of the Oiconomy Pricing (O.P) system, at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, and writing my Master's thesis on (social) sustainability assessment, the potential of this comprehensive methodology in aiding companies assess their sustainability impact, and improve their related performance, became clear to me. This research aims to shed light on the complex sustainability legal-market dynamic. It does so by analyzing the EU sustainability legislative landscape, its impact on organizations and value chains, and the extent to which the O.P can support practitioners in navigating, complying and improving their sustainability performance. Based on that, this research is targeted at, all sustainability experts in any sector, who want to better understand the impact of prominent EU legislative requirements, on their business activities, and explore the supporting role of a comprehensive full cost accounting methodology, i.e. the O.P system, in helping them assess, evaluate, and progress on their sustainability efforts. Furthermore, the research findings are also relevant for policy makers in the search for effective supporting tools to monitor, enforce, simplify, and ensure corporate compliance to legislative requirements.