Perceived value versus real value: Why can investors in sustainable companies fail in their mission?

Business models and investors should understand the meaning of ‘value’ from a different perspective if the ultimate goal is to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). New business strategies for pursuing the SDGs and the aptitude to set up cleaner and more collaborative production systems must replace the traditional approaches tied to a value perception that is not coherent with the actual sustainability performance of companies. This outdated but still largely used value perception is often vague, abstract, and lacks more objective models and indicators to avoid misleading choices of investments in companies with low levels of sustainability. Using a mining company in Brazil as an example, this commentary letter aims to provide insights about the need for information rooted in science, considering biophysical perspectives under a systemic approach to fully understand the meaning of value behind companies' performance and support investments in those more sustainable ones. Parameters to quantitatively assess companies' sustainability are presented to start the discussions about how investors can make better choices when putting their money on those really more sustainable companies that, besides returning profits, will support the achievement of SDGs. •Traditional ‘value’ perception lacks scientific bases to support sustainable development.•A vague, abstract and misleading ‘value’ perception leads to investment choices on unsustainable companies.•The importance in using scientifically-based models to support a biophysical-based ‘value’ creation is emphasized.•Progress towards sustainability hardly will be achieved based on traditional ‘value’ perception.