Integrated Investing

How to integrate environmental impacts in investment processes of companies

Besides financial goals, companies increasingly start formulating strategic environmental goals. However, the management and control of these goals remains a challenge. Therefore, this thesis aims to develop a method that is able to systematically integrate financial and environmental data in investment processes to support the achievement of strategic environmental and financial goals of companies. This new integrated investing method intends to provide a sufficient degree of scientific quality on the one hand and practical applicability on the other hand. In context of this thesis, a deficit analysis assesses reasons why current methods of environmental management accounting have not established as common business practice so far. During the first part of the subsequent method development a set of seven requirements is composed. On basis of these requirements additional methods of environmental management and management accounting systems are evaluated resulting in a final set of three approaches representing the basis of developing the new integrated investing method. After developing and describing the new integrated investing method, the method is applied in seven case studies within the Volkswagen Group. This method application verifies the method's practical applicability as well as its ability to manage and control strategic environmental and financial goals. In conclusion, this dissertation contributes to the development and application of a new integrated investing method that aims to ensure a sufficient degree of scientific quality and practical applicability. With the help of this method, it is able to systematically integrate environmental impacts in investment processes of companies in order to manage and control the achievement of strategic environmental and financial goals.