Valuing The Future: Re-evaluating Investment Risk and Return

The Insights for Action seminar series explores how researchers and practitioners within and beyond Oxford are using research insights to drive social change.

In this month’s seminar, we will launch the forthcoming impact finance report Re-evaluating Investment Risk and Return: An Outcome-Based Approach to Net Present Value Models and Discount Rates (November 2025). The discussion will introduce a new framework, the Outcomes-Based Net Present Value (ONPV) model, which rethinks how investments are valued over time.

Conventional models often undervalue long-term risks, externalities and social and environmental benefits. The ONPV model addresses these limitations by integrating adaptive and pluralistic discounting methods that better reflect uncertainty, evolving preferences and the diverse forms of capital that generate value.

By reframing discount rates and valuation methodologies, this approach aims to align investment decision-making with long-term sustainability, economic resilience and intergenerational equity. Join us to explore how the ONPV framework can support more inclusive, forward-looking capital allocation and help address systemic challenges such as climate change, inequality and sustainable development financing.