Sustainability in companies: internalizing into production costs the product and/or packaging disposal expenses

The aim of this work is to analyze and discuss the beliefs, values and practical aspects of the issue in question, taking into account that the internalization of the costs of disposing of the product and/or packaging should guide the management of the production costs of a firm. As studies into this field of knowledge are still few, and as there are no generally agreed solutions on the part of the market agents, a theoretical study was conducted that discusses the positionings, practices and potential actions that might mitigate the effects of environmental degradation ensuing from inappropriate disposal. To this end, the authors propose actions for the companies as well as voluntary initiatives to negotiate financial securities that offset the externalities. These were named private costs internalization credits. The authors assume that sustainable development is a process that involves negotiations among companies, government administrations and civil society, because the targets and policies should not merely be feasible, but also socially fair, environmentally correct and culturally shared.