The ‘Pathways to value’ in the table below summarise the different ways that sustainability can add financially to shareholder value for companies. You can use this table to help you find your business case for sustainability.

This table is an output of the first phase of the Better Decisions, Real Value  project. The project aims to enable companies to make better decisions by evaluating the financial contribution of sustainability to their success. The second phase will help companies engage the investor community, once they have the financial information they need.

The background research looked at many, many lists that declared “here is the business case for sustainability”. In our view, all those lists were a little bit right and a little bit wrong. Where they were right was proposing many different ways that sustainability could add to shareholder value. Where they were wrong was in proposing a definitive, short list. 

So, we took all the lists we could find and combined them into the table below.

There is some overlap between the pathways below. We have tried to reduce the number of pathways to a minimum. But different companies have different ways of understanding how they create value, and the role sustainability plays. So, we retained some overlaps so that the table is useful to a diverse range of businesses and users.

Also, while the table brings together all different pathways to value we have seen, without doubt there are other pathways. If you have any ideas please do suggest them to David Bent.                                                                                    

Click here for larger version of table