Conference Programme

Firms increasingly commit to dual objectives of financial performance and environmental sustainability. Yet they struggle to execute these strategies, as strategic capital allocation decisions often pit short-term financial impacts against long-term environmental consequences. We examine how environmental impact valuation can be integrated into management control systems so that environmental sustainability meaningfully shapes strategic capital allocation. Drawing on Simons’ (1995) Levers of Control framework, we present a 20-month single case study of TOOLIX, a capital-intensive multinational in the construction industry. Based on 60 interviews, focus groups, internal documents, analytical simulations, and observations of major investment decisions, we show how environmental impact valuation, as both a qualitative practice (purpose, strategic narratives) and a quantitative practice (prices, lifecycle metrics), was progressively integrated into belief, boundary, diagnostic, and interactive control systems. From this integration, we identify three mechanisms - temporal bridging, attention anchoring, and structural coupling - through which managers address dual objective control challenges. We discuss how these mechanisms depend on a strong belief system that legitimises environmental impact valuation and enables its effectiveness. In doing so, the study refines theories of management and sustainability control and offers design implications for dual objective alignment in strategic capital allocations.