In the context of production, a by-product is the "output from a joint production process that is minor in quantity and/or net realizable value (NRV) when compared with the main products".2 Because they are deemed to have no influence on reported financial results, by-products do not receive allocations of joint costs. By-products also, by convention, are not inventoried, but the NRV from by-products is typically recognized as "other income", or as a reduction of joint production processing costs when the by-product is produced.3
The International Energy Agency (IEA) defines by-product in the context of life-cycle assessment by defining four different product types: "main products, co-products (which involve similar revenues to the main product), by-products (which result in smaller revenues), and waste products (which provide little or no revenue)."4
While some chemists treat "by-product" and "side-product" as synonyms in the above sense of a generic secondary (untargeted) product, others find it useful to distinguish between the two. When the two terms are distinguished, "by-product" is used to refer to a product that is not desired but inevitably results from molecular fragments of starting materials and/or reagents that are not incorporated into the desired product, as a consequence of conservation of mass; in contrast, "side-product" is used to refer to a product that is formed from a competitive process that could, in principle, be suppressed by an optimization of reaction conditions.5
Muthu, Subramanian Senthilkannan; Li, Yi (2013). "Manufacturing Processes of Grocery Shopping Bags". Assessment of Environmental Impact by Grocery Shopping Bags: An Eco-Functional Approach. Environmental Issues in Logistics and Manufacturing. Singapore: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 7. ISBN 9789814560207. Retrieved 27 July 2019. Plastic is obtained as a by-product from the oil refining process [...] 9789814560207 ↩
Wouters, Mark; Selto, Frank H.; Hilton, Ronald W.; Maher, Michael W. (2012): Cost Management: Strategies for Business Decisions, International Edition, McGraw-Hill, p. 535. ↩
World Trade Organization (2004): United States – Final dumping determination on softwood lumber from Canada, WT/DS264/AB/R, 11 August 2004. /wiki/World_Trade_Organization ↩
"BIOMITRE Technical Manual, Horne, R. E. and Matthews, R., November 2004" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-26. Retrieved 2011-02-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20110726171133/http://www.ieabioenergy-task38.org/systemdefining/biomitre_technical_manual.pdf# ↩
Watson, Will (2012). "On Byproducts and Side Products". Org. Process Res. Dev. 16 (12): 1877–1877. doi:10.1021/op300317g. https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fop300317g ↩