Companies are increasingly using valuation methods to prioritize their corporate sustainability initiatives, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In a poll of 1,400 corporate executives during a recent PwC webcast on sustainability valuation, nearly half of the respondents said they are using sustainability valuation methods. Thirty-six percent described their biggest challenge as prioritizing among initiatives.

Approximately 10 percent saw beyond prioritization and are now in the stage of asking the question of how much capital to allocate to sustainability in order to take the valuation proposition premise to the next level.

However, many corporate executives indicated their struggle with putting a dollar value on sustainability initiatives. Thirty-nine percent of the poll respondents said they have not attempted any valuation techniques, while 31 percent noted their interest in quantifying the impact of sustainability in shareholder value.

About 17 percent of the corporate executives surveyed said that direct cost savings is what matters the most, indicating that the indirect benefits of sustainability initiatives are not yet on their radar screen.