TY - JOUR

T1 - Sustainable Value Added

T2 - Measuring Corporate Contributions to Sustainability Beyond Eco-Efficiency

AU - Figge, Frank

AU - Hahn, Tobias

N1 - Literaturverz. S. 185 - 187

PY - 2004/2/20

Y1 - 2004/2/20

N2 - This paper proposes a new approach to measure corporate contributions to sustainability called Sustainable Value Added. Value is created whenever benefits exceed costs. Current approaches to measure corporate sustainable performance take into account external costs caused by environmental and social damage or focus on the ratio between value creation and resource consumption. As this paper will show it is more promising to develop sustainable measures based on opportunity costs. Sustainable Value Added is such a measure. It shows how much more value is created because a company is more efficient than a benchmark and because the resources are allocated to the company and not to benchmark companies. The concept of strong sustainability requires that each form of capital is kept constant. As Sustainable Value Added is inspired by strong sustainability, it measures whether a company creates extra value while ensuring that every environmental and social impact is in total constant. Therefore, it takes into account both, corporate eco- and social efficiency as well as the absolute level of environmental and social resource consumption (eco- and social effectiveness). As a result, Sustainable Value Added considers simultaneously economic, environmental and social aspects. The overall result can be expressed in any of the three dimensions of sustainability.

AB - This paper proposes a new approach to measure corporate contributions to sustainability called Sustainable Value Added. Value is created whenever benefits exceed costs. Current approaches to measure corporate sustainable performance take into account external costs caused by environmental and social damage or focus on the ratio between value creation and resource consumption. As this paper will show it is more promising to develop sustainable measures based on opportunity costs. Sustainable Value Added is such a measure. It shows how much more value is created because a company is more efficient than a benchmark and because the resources are allocated to the company and not to benchmark companies. The concept of strong sustainability requires that each form of capital is kept constant. As Sustainable Value Added is inspired by strong sustainability, it measures whether a company creates extra value while ensuring that every environmental and social impact is in total constant. Therefore, it takes into account both, corporate eco- and social efficiency as well as the absolute level of environmental and social resource consumption (eco- and social effectiveness). As a result, Sustainable Value Added considers simultaneously economic, environmental and social aspects. The overall result can be expressed in any of the three dimensions of sustainability.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - assessment

KW - corporate sustainability

KW - effectiveness

KW - efficiency

KW - opportunity cost

KW - performance measurement

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=1242298906&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/98f0b040-55f8-3d6c-92ee-3bb3d4fa8025/

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2003.08.005

DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2003.08.005

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 48

SP - 173

EP - 187

JO - Ecological Economics

JF - Ecological Economics

SN - 0921-8009

IS - 2

ER -