Over the last years, many approaches have emerged that attempt to measure the contribution of firms to sustainable development, i.e. corporate sustainability. Our review of existing methodologies for the assessment of corporate sustainability reveals two major shortcomings. First, value creation as a core condition for sustainability as well as for further contributions to economic sustainability is often ignored in these assessments, suggesting that financial and non‐financial organizational processes are separable. Second, existing approaches fail to differentiate between the actual contribution of a firm to sustainability on the one hand, and governance‐related features aimed at attaining this contribution on the other. We argue that the implementation of sustainability‐oriented organizational structures and managerial instruments alone does not necessarily guarantee sustainability performance. Therefore, besides the dimension of current sustainability performance, we introduce the notion of sustainability governance as a second distinct dimension of corporate sustainability assessment. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

The proportion of sustainable property in the total building stock remains small. One reason is that the financial added value resulting from sustainability is not sufficiently taken into account in property valuation due to the tendency of valuations to lag behind market trends. This article presents the development of a new approach that attempts to provide the quantitative information necessary to integrate those aspects of sustainability relating to value into valuations and thereby contribute to reducing the valuation lag. The CCRS Economic Sustainability Indicator ESI measures the risk of property to lose and the opportunity to gain value due to future developments like climate change or rising energy prices. Five groups of value-related sustainability features were identified: flexibility and polyvalence, energy and water dependency, accessibility and mobility, security, health and comfort. By minimizing the risk of loss in value through future developments, those sustainability features contribute to the property value. Their effects on property value were quantified by risk modelling. As an indicator for future-oriented property risk, ESI is integrated in the discount rate of Discounted Cash Flow (DCF ) valuations. The approach has been tested for plausibility and practicability on more than 200 properties. Sustainability and property valuation: a risk-based approach AbstractThe proportion of sustainable property in the total building stock remains small. One reason is that the financial added value resulting from sustainability is not sufficiently taken into account in property valuation due to the tendency of valuations to lag behind market trends. This article presents the development of a new approach that attempts to provide the quantitative information necessary to integrate those aspects of sustainability relating to value into valuations and thereby contribute to reducing the valuation lag. The CCRS Economic Sustainability Indicator ESI measures the risk of property to lose and the opportunity to gain value due to future developments like climate change or rising energy prices. Five groups of value-related sustainability features were identified: flexibility and polyvalence, energy and water dependency, accessibility and mobility, security, health and comfort. By minimizing the risk of loss in value through future developments, those sustainability features contribute to the property value. Their effects on property value were quantified by risk modelling. As an indicator for future-oriented property risk, ESI is integrated in the discount rate of Discounted Cash Flow (DCF ) valuations. The approach has been tested for plausibility and practicability on more than 200 properties.

Purpose-This paper aims to identify the relative contribution of sustainability criteria to property value risk. Design/methodology/approach-Adiscounted cash flow (DCF) model is used to assess the effect of a given set of 42 sustainability sub-indicators on property value. The anticipated demand for each sustainability sub-indicator is described by four future states of nature. Their impact on costs or revenue is estimated and included in the model. Subjective probability distributions describe the occurrence of the future states of nature. Monte Carlo simulations of the DCF model are then used to estimate the impact of an individual feature on the risk (volatility) of the property value distribution. Findings-The results for Switzerland show that "use of thermal energy" (29.3 per cent), followed by "access to public transportation" (16.3 per cent), "day light" (9.6 per cent) and "story height" (6.3 per cent) have the highest single impact on property value risk. Practical implications-The results are used for a risk-based weighting of a sustainability rating. The rating illustrates how sustainability criteria affect the risk of specific properties and are used as a basis for real estate investment decisions. Originality/value-In this paper, an effort is made to rigorously ground sustainability ratings in financial theory.

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