Project Initiation: Investment Analysis for Sustainable Development

Today the consideration of sustainable development (SD) becomes more and more important for investments. In the project initiation process the decision regarding the realization of an investment is made. Analyzing the investment is one main tasks of the project initiation process. Thus this process is identified as most important for the integration of SD principles. We define SD with the following principles: economic, ecologic and social-orientation; short, mid and long term-orientation as well as local, regional and global-orientation. Furthermore SD is values-based. In this chapter describe the concept of responsible and ethical investment, which may also provide the basis for an investment decision within the project initiation.
While global project and program management standards show very limited consideration of comprehensive investment analysis; we draw on the Logical Framework Approach used by the World Bank to see how SD principles are considered in investment analysis methods. We then propose the integration of SD principles. This more holistic approach considers the investment life cycle, the consideration of different stakeholders and investment method which explicitly integrates SD principles.