The Impact of the Internet on the Music Industry

Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg

Faculty of Economics & Management

Sustainable Enterprise Development SS2016

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Olga Popova

Valuation of Enterprise Sustainability

Thuy My Pham

Matriculation No.: 205022

E-Mail: pham.thuymy@ymail.com

B.Sc. International Business and Economics

Date of Submission: 12 May, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Sustainability Measurement Principles
3. The Shareholder Value Paradigm
4. Conclusion
5. List of References

Introduction

Over the past decades, our world had to face obstacles in population growth, resource scarcity, economic and technological development. For that reason, various companies have endeavored to enhance their environmental and social performance of their products and supply chain by launching proactive programs in order to become a sustainable enterprise.  Nonetheless, these companies have to figure out a way to measure and to report their sustainable activities. Sustainable processes, developments, growth, products, facilities and technologies need to be presented to the company’s own staff, more important to stakeholders and eventually Wall Street. Thus, the enterprise needs methods to measure its sustainability quantitative and qualitative. As this field of measuring sustainability is quite new and complex, it is rather difficult to find a common measurement standard. Furthermore, sustainability can be found beyond and outside of the company, since it involves the company’s whole value chain. In the following sections, this paper will argue the principles of sustainability performance measurement (SPM). First, the guiding principles of SPM will suggest how performance measurement should be. Second, the shareholder value model will be taken under consideration. Based on the indirect and direct method, this paper will discuss how valuation methods can help scrutinize, prioritize and measure how sustainability initiatives contribute to shareholder value. The goal of this paper is to understand the steps of SPM, from planning, implementation over to reviewing and to find out how important sustainability is to an enterprise of the 21st century.

Sustainability Measurement Principles

“The first principle of sustainability measurement is that evaluations should address the dual perspectives of resource consumption and value creation.” (Fiksel et at, 1999)

A sustainable enterprise ought to minimize its resource consumption, including direct natural resources (e.g. water, land), direct anthropogenic resources (e.g. energy, material, human capital) and indirect anthropogenic resources like waste; meanwhile maximizing value creation (profit). Direct value creation is achieved if one or more of the company’s stakeholders can benefit from e.g. added economic value, functional performance and customer satisfaction. Indirect values include human wealth, social welfare, environmental quality and technological progress.