Corporate sustainability performance: methods and illustrative examples

The concept of sustainable development is of increasing importance for societies. Corporations are as relevant societal actors in an essential role 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 into 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 Added, 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 and completeness. The methods are used to assess the sustainability performance of BP and Royal Dutch/Shell Group.