COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Redefining Value: The New Metrics of Sustainable Business

The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA

October 24th, 2011

REGISTER NOW Business leaders today are faced with one of the most compelling challenges of our time: to identify new paths to value creation that respond to pressing environmental and human need, and more fully take in to account and measure business impact on all of it's stakeholders as well as it's shareholders. Key to this is the need for a new set of metrics by which new forms of tangible and intangible value can be measured and connected to the impact on financial performance.

This day long, in-depth discussion examines leading edge work being done to develop new ways to quantify, manage and communicate impact, as well as new forms of value being delivered to various stakeholders. Companies that grasp and find appropriate ways to adopt these new models will be in a stronger position to set and manage strategy and goals that dependably support both near term success and long term continuity.

Various leading edge initiatives will be presented, and time will be devoted for interactive and thought provoking discussion facilitated by three of the top sustainability strategists in the country; Gil Friend, Paul Herman and Andrew Winston. Throughout the day, sustainability and finance leaders will explore together the issues and opportunities surrounding the retooling of key business metrics to optimize business for sustainable success in the 21st Century.

* .. How your environmental and social impact activities can be set in the context of what would constitute true sustainability of your activities.

* .. What kind of shareholder value is, or might be created from your sustainability efforts.

* .. What kinds of metrics or scorecards are taking shape to help you measure the various aspects of your environmental impact (organization, product, supply chain, whole industry, etc.)

* .. If you are properly accounting for all your assets, or are there some investments that might be moved from expense to asset class on the balance sheet.