The dynamic adaptive sustainability balanced scorecard: A new framework for a sustainability-driven strategy

The Sustainability Balanced Scorecard (SBSC) has been widely recognized as a valuable decision aid approach in the management of sustainability. Controversy is nevertheless still prevalent on which SBSC architecture is most suitable for which organizational context. Moreover, the literature unveils some structural flaws in SBSC design methodologies that remain up till now fundamentally based on intuitionist mental models and subjective judgment. Building upon existing critical evaluations and the gaps to be addressed, we propose in this paper a new sustainability decision aid framework based on a novel combination of Multi-Criteria Decision Making methods (MCDM), Fuzzy logic, and System Dynamics modeling. The resulting framework, denoted as the Dynamic Adaptive SBSC (D-ASBSC), offers the advantage of high adaptability, comprehensiveness, and unbiased methodical cause-effect relationship construction. In addition, thanks to a systematic rule-based generation of the causal loop diagram and the stock-flow chart, the D-ASBSC permits to effectively remedy to the infamous mental models restriction that has long been raised in System Dynamics modeling. © Research India Publications.