Sustainable Value Added of the Oil Companies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Abstract

Purpose of the article: Sustainable Value Added was introduced as a whole new concept in 2004. Since then, it has gained popularity among some scholars, mostly of the West-European origin. In this article we implement this method further on the East as we see a huge gap in using modern ways of measuring the environmental impact of companies. In particular, we aim at the industry considered one of the “dirtiest” – oil industry. Methodology: This paper presents results of an analysis of sustainable value added created by analysed companies in six different environmental resources: carbon dioxide emissions, nitrogen oxide emissions, sulphur oxide emissions, waste generated, water used and volatile organic compound emissions, respectively. Value created by these employed resources is compared with the benchmark value of the European Union. Scientific aim: As crucial industry generating environmental pollution as a negative externality, we consider manufacture of plastics in primary forms (NACE code 1920). In this paper we determine whether Slovnaft, Unipetrol and Česká rafinérská, as the three biggest companies according to value added in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in this industry, contribute positively or negatively to value creation on the European Union level. Findings: The results show that in 2010 Slovnaft performance failed to fulfil default target though it created the greatest (albeit negative) value added in financial terms. Other Czech companies are, surprisingly, worse off but not by much. Conclusions: The concept of Sustainable Value Added takes another point of view to the problematic issues of companies’ pollution. Although it determines how well (or bad for that matter) a particular company uses its resources compared to a benchmark, it does not judge whether using the total capital in a company can be considered as sustainable or not. Nevertheless, this method is suitable when used for analysis of contribution to the sustainability.