ADVANCE, Application and Dissemination of Value-Based Eco-Ratings in Financial Markets, is the first project worldwide to apply the SUSTAINABLE VALUE approach on a large scale. ADVANCE has a total budget of 688,000 € and is financed by the EU LIFE Environment programme and the participating partners. Among other things ADVANCE will assess the sustainable performance of European industry in monetary terms.

Assessing the sustainable performance of companies is notoriously difficult. Economic, environmental and social aspects are measured in different units and difficult to integrate. This is where Sustainable Value comes into play. SUSTAINABLE VALUE is the first assessment and management methodology worldwide that uses a tried and tested financial markets approach to assess and manage environmental, social and financial capital. Using opportunity-cost thinking SUSTAINABLE VALUE allows assessing the sustainable performance of companies in monetary terms. In contrast to all other existing assessment methods SUSTAINABLE VALUE is value-oriented. It focuses on the value created rather than the damages caused by the use of environmental and social resources.

SUSTAINABLE VALUE has been developed by researchers of the University of Leeds‘ Sustainability Research Institute and the Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment (IZT) in Berlin. Both organisations have now teamed up together with four eco-rating agencies from Germany, Hungary, Italy and Sweden to perform the largest application of the Sustainable Value approach to date. Part of the ADVANCE-project is to assess the Sustainable Value of European companies.

During SMIA05 researchers of the ADVANCE-project will for the first time give some insights into some preliminary findings of the assessments that are currently performed for the ADVANCE-project. As Frank Figge of Leeds University’s Sustainability Research Institute and Tobias Hahn of the Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment will show a single British company can drag down the United Kingdom’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by almost 8%. But there are other, sometimes surprising examples. For example a car manufacturer that contributes positively to Europe's sustainable performance.

More information about the Sustainable Value approach can be found on www.SustainableValue.com. The website of the ADVANCE project is www.advance-project.org.

Information:
www.smia.info and
Hubert Klun, Organising Committee: phone. +41 21 646 59 80, E-mail: hklun@(ch)smia.info


The ADVANCE project is generously supported by the LIFE Environment Programme under grant number LIFE04 ENV/UK/000815.