Hotel industry to be first under the spotlight in the new Tomorrow's Value Rating

Friday 2nd October 2009 sees the launch of the Tomorrow’s Value Rating, a new rating that looks at how well companies manage their most pressing social and environmental issues.

Every two months, the Tomorrow’s Value Rating will examine the largest companies in a globally important industry sector. The first sector to come under the spotlight will be Hotel Groups, followed by Energy and Utilities, Oil and Gas, ICT and Food and Beverages.

The Tomorrow’s Value Rating aims to further the debate on sustainable business, identify and reward best practice, and spur healthy competition among companies, motivating them to create and protect tomorrow’s value.

Researched and produced by Two Tomorrows, the Tomorrow’s Value Rating draws on five years’ experience with its predecessor rating, the Accountability Rating. In that time, many large companies made significant progress in the areas of performance assessed by the Accountability Rating. The new approach is therefore designed to assess and advance the areas of sustainability performance that still have much scope for improvement, focusing in particular on innovation for sustainability, sector-specific risks and opportunities, and the corporate value chain.

Thomas Krick, global programme manager of the Tomorrow’s Value Rating, explains why the Tomorrow’s Value Rating is needed: "This Rating is significantly different to any other current sustainability rating or index. By focusing on individual sectors and their specific challenges, we can identify the areas of corporate sustainability performance that still offer big opportunities for competitive differentiation. We believe that this will enhance companies’ awareness and understanding of the future drivers of long-term value in their sector.

"Numerous conversations with companies, often as part of de-briefs to previous Accountability Ratings, have confirmed that the time for such a rating has come.”

Jason Perks, director at Two Tomorrows, adds: “We see the Tomorrow’s Value Rating becoming an indispensable reference for companies who recognise that management of social and environmental issues contributes to a company’s sustainability, so helping protect and create value both for that company, and society as a whole.”

The Tomorrow’s Value Rating examines companies’ performance in five key areas: Strategy, Governance, Engagement, Value Chain and Innovation. Independent assessments are carried out on the world’s largest companies in each industry sector, and are based on companies’ public disclosures.

Two Tomorrows will be undertaking regular ratings of global sectors, and will also be launching country ratings with national partners in 2010.