A subatomic dive in value: lecture notes for a summer school on circular real estate valuation using quantum theories

Abstract

Value drives actions in our modern day economy. In their turn, these actions are the pillars for how well societal transitions are achieved in the long run. In the past decade, we’ve seen governments heavily funding and subsidizing transitions in action to better achieve desperately needed societal targets. Examples are the prevention of climate change, climate transition, and a decrease in resource consumption. However, these significant initiatives are not nearly close to being self-reliant. And with the current retraction of a lot of funds and subsidies on the horizon, the achievement of these transitions has gotten in serious jeopardy. The authors of this abstract posit that these funds and subsidies have not been able to make a significant step forward to successful transitions, mostly because the efforts still focus and rely on the monetary values and motivations and ignore the rest.. It is argued that the introduction of value beyond monetary terms and a way to determine this value is needed. In response, this abstract is intended as the ontological start for developing a summer school, which is part of a recently granted Marie Curie Doctoral Network programme, called QuiVal, where the concept of value is revisited using quantum theory. The summer school under development marks the doctoral network's first educational notes. The aim of the summer school therefore is to stimulate conceptual creativity and critical thinking on the concept of value and offer first clues on how value can be reimagined in practical fields of application surrounding the real estate sector. As preliminary examples to the content of these lecture notes, the authors aim to discuss the implications on value from the position of quantum finance versus classical finance, the potential of these implications to unlock perceptive capability for hard-to-measure value (e.g. social and environmental values) and how it can open up various dimensions of potential value measurements that are important to the multiple transitions in our built environment. To this background summer school, QuiVal aspires to broaden the recognition of non-financial values in industry, government, and research unlocking more sustainable approaches to real estate. For example, by developing models and tools for (non-financial) value measurements we could support decision-making and demonstrate the attractiveness of social and environmental projects better through the research by the doctoral network.