Two dimensions of corporate sustainability assessment: towards a comprehensive framework

Abstract

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 quarantee 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.