Sustainability performance of corporations: Comparison of assessment methods

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development is of increasing importance for societies. Corporations play an essential role as relevant societal actors for the realization and implementation of sustainable development. Therefore it is necessary to assess the performance of corporations in the light of sustainable development. In this paper, basic methods and instruments for the assessment of corporate sustainability performance are compared. Sustainability assessments can be divided in two groups: the first group consists of methods based on monetary units, the second group consists of methods based on non-monetary units. The methods of sustainable value, composite sustainable development index and integrated sustainability assessment are discussed in detail and evaluated regarding the criteria applicability, contribution to basic goals of sustainable development, completeness and advantages / disadvantages. The methods are additionally used to assess the sustainability performance of BP and Royal Dutch/Shell Group.