Another significant change in a way that firms are valued is the special attention that many are giving to general environmental considerations. A case in point is the issue of fuel and energy. In the summer of 2008, the cost of gas rising to over $150 a barrel and consumers paying more than $4 at the pump for a gallon of gas, alternatives have emerged globally. At the time of writing this textbook, the cost of gas had dropped significantly to as low as $1.50 per gallon at the pump, but the memory of the high prices, along with the major financial crisis, is a major incentive to production of alternative energy sources such as wind and sun. Fuel cost contributed in large part to the trouble that the U.S. automakers faced in December because they had continued to produce large gas-guzzlers such as sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) with minimal production of alternative gas-efficient cars like the Toyota Prius and Yaris, the Ford Fusion hybrid, and the Chevrolet Avio. With the U.S. government bailout of the U.S. automobile industry in December 2008 came a string of demands to modernize and to innovate with electric cars. Further, the government made it clear that Detroit must produce competitive products already offered by the other large automakers such as Toyota and Honda (which offered both its Accord and its Civic in hybrid form).^[59] Chevrolet will offer a plug-in car called the Volt in the spring of 2010 with a range of more than 80 mpg on a single charge. Chrysler and Ford plan to follow with their own hybrids by 2012.

World population growth and fast growth among emerging economies have led us to believer that our environment has suffered immense and irrevocable damage.^[60] Its resources have been depleted; its atmosphere, land, and water quickly polluted; and its water, forests, and energy sources destroyed. The 2005 United Nations Millennium Ecosystem report from 2005 provides a glimpse into our ecosystem’s fast destruction. From a risk management point of view, these risks can destroy our universe, so their management is essential to sustainabilitysustainabilityThe capacity to maintain a certain process or state.. Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes and functions.^[61] Some risk management textbooks regard the risk management for sustainability as the first priority, since doing business is irrelevant if we are destroying our planet and undoing all the man-made achievements.

To reflect these considerations in practical decision making, we have to further adjust the definition and measurement of business goals. To be sensible, the firm must add a long-term perspective to its goals to include sustainable value maximization.

In this section we demonstrate how the concept of a firm maximizing its value can guide risk managers’ decisions. For simplicity’s sake, we provide an example. Assume that we base firm valuation on its forecasted future annual cash flow. Assume further that the annual cash flow stays roughly at the same level over time. We know that the annual cash flows are subject to fluctuations due to uncertainties and technological innovations, changing demand, and so forth.^[62] In order to explain the inclusion of risk management in the process, we use the following income statement example:^[63]

We assume that the value of the firm is ten times the value of the profit,^[64] or $1,000 in this very simple example (10 × $100).^[65] Now, assume that the firm considers a new risk management policy in which $40 will be spent to improve safety (or insurance premiums). If all other factors are held constant, then the firm’s profits will decrease, and the firm’s value will also decrease. In other words, in the simplistic model of certainty, any additional expense would reduce the firm’s value and managers would, therefore, regard the situation as undesirable. It seems that in general, almost all risk management activities would be undesirable, since they reduce the hypothetical firm’s value. However, this analysis ignores some effects and, therefore, leads to incorrect conclusions. In reality, the risk manager takes an action that may improve the state of the firm in many directions. Recall our demonstration of the safety belts example that we introduced Chapter 4, Evolving Risk Management: Fundamental Tools. Customers may increase their purchases from this firm, based on their desire to trade with a more secure company, as its chances of surviving sudden difficulties improve. Many also believe that, as the firm gains relief from its fears of risks, the company can improve long-term and continuous service. Employees would feel better working for a more secure company and could be willing to settle for lower salaries. In addition, bondholders (creditors) will profit from increased security measures and thus would demand lower interest rates on the loans they provide (this is the main effect of a high credit rating). Thus, risk management activity may affect a variety of parameters and change the expected profit (or cash flow) in a more complex way. We present the state of this hypothetical firm as follows:

The profit (or expected profit) of the company has risen. If the owners continue to demand a tenfold multiplication factor, then the firm’s value increases from $1,000 to $1,250. The increase is a direct result of the new risk management policy, despite the introduction of the additional risk management or insurance costs. Note that the firm’s value has increased because other stakeholders (besides the owners) have enjoyed a change of attitude toward the firm. The main stakeholders affected include the credit suppliers in the capital market, the labor market and the product customers’ market. This did not happen as a result of improving the security of the stockholders but as a result of other parties benefiting from the firm’s new policy.

In fact, the situation could be even more interesting, if, in addition, the owners would be interested in a more secure firm and would be willing to settle for a higher multiplier (which translates into lower rate of return to the owners).^[66] For example, if the new multiplier is eleven, the value of the firm would go up to $1,375 (125 × 11), relative to the original value of $1,000, which was based on a multiplier of ten.

This oversimplified example sheds a light on the practical complexity of measuring the risk manager’s performance, according to the modern approach. Top managers couldn’t evaluate the risk manager’s performance without taking into account all the interactions between all the parties involved. In reality, a precise analysis of this type is complicated, and risk managers would have a hard time estimating if their policies are the correct ones. Let us stress that this analysis is extremely difficult if we use only standard accounting tools, which are not sensitive enough to the possible interactions (e.g., standard accounting does not measure the fine changes that take place—such as the incremental effect of the new risk management policy on the sales, the salaries, or the creditors’ satisfaction). We described this innovative approach in hope that the student will understand the nature of the problem and perhaps develop accounting tools that will present them with practical value.

Risk managers may not always clearly define their goals, because the firm’s goals are not always clearly defined, especially for nonprofit organizations. Executives’ complex personal considerations, management coalitions, company procedures, past decisions, hopes, and expectations enter into the mix of parameters defining the firm’s goals. These types of considerations can encourage risk managers to take conservative action. For example, risk managers may buy too much insurance for risks that the firm could reasonably retain. This could result from holding the risk manager personally responsible for uninsured losses. Thus, it’s very important not to create a conflict between the risk managers’ interests and the firm’s interests. For example, the very people charged with monitoring mortgage issuance risk, the mortgage underwriters and mortgage bankers, had a financial incentive (commissions) to issue the loans regardless of the intrinsic risks. The resulting subprime mortgage crisis ensued because of the conflict of interest between mortgage underwriters and mortgage bankers. This situation created the starting point for the 2008–2009 financial crisis.

Risk managers must ascertain—before the damage occurs—that an arrangement will provide equilibrium between resources needed and existing resources. The idea is to secure continuity despite losses. As such, the risk manager’ job is to evaluate the firm’s ability or capacity to sustain (absorb) damages. This job requires in-depth knowledge of the firm’s financial resources, such as credit lines, assets, and insurance arrangements. With this information risk managers can compare alternative methods for handling the risks. We describe these alternative methods in the next section.