The Sustainable Asset Valuation (SAVi) tool allows governments and investors to analyze the costs of externalities and the financial profile of a single asset or portfolio of assets and compare it to other options.
SAVi can currently be used for infrastructure including energy, roads, buildings and water.
SAVi was presented at a side event during the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE region.
2 March 2018: On the sidelines of the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (RFSD) for the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Region, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) presented a modelling tool for analyzing the costs of externalities of infrastructure projects. The Sustainable Asset Valuation (SAVi) method can currently be used for infrastructure related to energy, roads, buildings and water.
The Regional Forum convened from 1-2 March 2018, in Geneva, Switzerland. At the side event titled, ‘Making the Business Case for Sustainable Infrastructure: The SAVi method,’ Oshani Perera and Laurin Wuennenberg, IISD, noted that governments spend 15-20% of their total budgets on public goods and services, and assets have long lifespans and therefore present a large opportunity for sustainable development, when developed in a way that considers social, environmental and economic implications.
The SAVi tool allows governments and investors to analyze an asset (either a single asset or a portfolio of assets) by the costs of externalities and its financial profile, and compare it to other options. SAVi is built using both conventional financial models and more comprehensive systems dynamics models. It includes several analyses that allow governments, cities and investors to assess infrastructure in various ways, including using an extended cost-benefit analysis, comparative assessments to other assets, scenario analysis for future potential factors including climate change and carbon pricing, and a financial feasibility assessment.
During the side event, IISD presented a case study from the Netherlands where SAVi was applied to a large offshore wind asset to compare costs of electricity, number of jobs, and other financial ratios to alternative energy sources including coal, biomass and others. The Dutch Government identified material externalities including emissions, labor income, land use, loss of fisheries, recreation, sand mining and seaweed production, and IISD worked with local agencies to populate the model to build the assessments. [SAVi Tool] [Side Event information] [UNECE Regional Forum Webpage]