SUSTAINABLE VALUE OF COMPANIES

Abstract

Doing business in the twenty-first century, a period marked by globalization, terrorism, limitation of natural resources, environmental problems, is a real challenge and managers must make efforts in order to create a healthy and new organizational culture, whose goal is long-term financial performance, but also the well-being of the whole planet. In recent years, more and more companies are focusing on integrating sustainability into their core business, understanding that this can become a source of innovation and lasting value. This paper aims to capture what sustainability is and what are the advantages it can bring, at the company level, looking at how to create lasting value through social and environmental performance. The new challenge for companies is to find a new way to measure and manage business performance, not only by maximization of shareholders value, but by maximizing stakeholders’ value. Creating sustainable value is a new paradigm in the development of companies, based on the inclusion of intangible assets and human capital in the value of the company. Therefore, the factors that generate economic value have changed, and the theory of the shareholder company has become the theory of the partnership company, which emphasizes the well-being of all partners: employees, customers, community, shareholders, etc. Sustainable value is created from the shared interests of stakeholders and shareholders and to achieve it, modern companies must have a new approach based on identifying the key value drivers and design long-term strategies, which automatically requires a new way of seeing and treating the world.