Daveco, Inc. manufactures cylindrical automotive cell batteries used in electrical vehicles $($EV$),$ under

the brand name Lumix $0.$ After several years of manufacturing and selling Lumix$0,$ the company expanded

operations and now has three plants named Havana, Banabe and Merlen, located across three states in the

United States. In the early years of operation, Daveco relied on standard costing approaches in producing

inventory, and used industry trends$/$benchmarks to determine how many units of Lumix$0$ to produce. However,

industry trends have become unreliable in predicting the accuracy of sales of inventory for cylindrical

automotive cell batteries as many EV manufacturess have begun using prismatic cells in some of their vehicles.

Also, Daveco's customers have become conscious of adhering to the United Nations Sustainable Development

Goals $($SDG$)$ and indicate that as part of the EV manufacturers' tracking of alignment with these goals, they

would be considering whether to continue ordering Daveco's Lumix$0,$ pending yearly assessments on Daveo's

demonstration of commitments to Goal $12($ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns$)$ and $13$

$($take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts$).$

In the production of Lumix $0$ battery cells, $41\mathrm{.}48kWh$ of energy per kilowatt hour of cell capacity are

consumed per unit, while Daveco has also determined that $10\mathrm{.}33kg$ of $C{O}_2-$eq is emitted per $kWh$ of battery manufacturing system that produces each component of inventory only as and when needed in the production

line. In the year $2018,$ Banebe produced and sold $10,000$ units of Lumix$0,$ and the plant manager was rewarded

with stock incentives. Towards the end of $2018,$ Daveco's CEO proposed the increase of the Havana and

Merlen plant managers' stock bonus incentives tied to increasing operating income in the coming year, $2019.$

Daveco's plant managers have the discretion to choose their internal accounting methods, provided that the

external accounting methods are those accepted by the Internal Revenue Service $($IRS$).$ In $2019,$ managers of

the Havana and Merlen plant choose the absorption costing method for their internal reporting approach citing

the added fees that would be incurred in paying the variable costing reporting of their internal operations, since

Daveco would also need to provide the IRS an income statement using the absorption costing approach. The

income statement used by the plant managers is also the data available to the CEO and shareholders. At the end

of $2019,$ the data on units of Lumix$0$ produced and sold became available. Table $1$ shows the data related to the

production of Lumix$0$ for both the Havana and Merlen plants at the end of $2019,$ and the Banebe Plant for the

$2018$ year.

TABLE $1$: Details of production data for each of the $3$ plants in the Relevant Period. To determine how well Daveco Inc.$\text{'}$s production provided benefits to shareholders in relation to costs, perform

the following:

Using an absorption costing approach and a variable costing approach, prepare income statements for the

Havana and Merlen plants at the end of $2019$ and the Banebe plant in $2018.$

Consider the units produced and sold for each plant $($Havana and Merlen in $2019$ and Banabe in $2018)$ and

perform a data analysis of the absorption vs$.$ variable costing approach in terms of the behavior of total costs as

a percentage of revenue and operating income as a percentage of revenue.

Write a reflection on the implications for the operating income reported to shareholders by each of the plant

managers. How would the decision to build the inventory be different if the shareholders had been provided

with both operating income statements? Are there any ethical concerns?

For each plant in the relevant period given, compute the carbon emissions and energy usage attributable to

units produced and units not sold.

Perform analysis of data by visualizing $($with charts$/$graphs$)$ the information in requirement $4.$

Write reflections on the impact of the accounting method used by the Havana and Merlen plants. How might

the data reflected in both the variable and absorption costing approaches align or misalign with SDG Goals $12$

and $13$ by Daveco Inc?