义利99丨A股上市公司社会价值评估报告的时代意义

How is “social value” defined? Why is an assessment of “SV99” needed? Before we unveil the “2017 SV 99 Ranking ofChina’s A-share Listed Companies”, it is essential to clarifythe background, scope of definition.

Following the Agriculture Age featured by the “Yellow Civilisation” and the Industrial Age by the “Black Civilisation”,the mankind has started seeking to usher in the Ecological Age featured by the “Green Civilisation”. Since it wasproposed in the 1920s, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gone through a century-long processof ebb and flow in practice, and most companies are still dwelling on the bottom-line thinking of “doing no harm",and regarding the CSR investment as "cost with no return”. To some extent, CSR investment has become a riskmanagement shield when a company is confronted with external pressures.

In the beginning of the 21st century, the concept of "social impact investment” was put forward by some Westerncountries, and after a decade or so, the scale of social impact investment has now reached USD 114 billion, or 0.21%of the total global investment. Social impact investment was initially made by a variety of foundations and othernon-profit organisations, which mostly targets livelihood sectors at the bottom of social pyramid; then increasinglyfollowed by institutional investors worldwide, which pursue impact beyond financial return either or not oncommercial terms. This development is progressive in that investors begin to accept the concept of externalities(non-financial performance), and corporations have tried to solve social problems through business approaches, butit remains restricted in that it is still hard to target the mainstream market and the practice of Doing Well and DoingGood by businesses has yet to be further promoted.

The rapid development of China during the past four decades has made it the second largest economy in the world,and the great success China has achieved in its socialist market economy system has aroused global attention. Ona global scale, the United Nations (UN) proposed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, calling forglobal efforts to jointly tackle economic, social and environmental challenges. Domestically, after the innovative,coordinated, green, open, and shared development vision was launched in 2015, China has embarked on a newjourney towards the all-round building of a modern socialist country, as emphatically marked by the 19th CPCNational Congress convened in 2017. Against this historical background and realistic context, CASVI has advocatedthe social value proposition defined as “Doing Well and Doing Good”, and launched the investigation and research onthe relationships between social value and capital markets.

Social value, in a broad sense, refers to efforts and contributions made by individuals or organisations to serve thematerial and psychological needs of society or other people in general. Social value for the purpose of this reportis referred to as “Doing Well and Doing Good” (DW & DG), which specifically means the comprehensive economic,social and environmental benefits created by organisations through innovative technologies for production, businessoperation models and management systems for the purpose of building a better future with improved quality,efficiency, justice and sustainability.

The proposition of social value in the modern social context is by nature an achievement featuring DW & DG, asmanifested in the dynamic process of development covering the AIM, APPROACH and ACTION – specifically the AIMof development is to build a better future with improved quality, efficiency, justice and sustainability; the APPROACHis focused on innovative technologies for production, business operation models and management systems; and theACTION is the creation of comprehensive economic, social and environmental benefits by organisations.

The social value proposition is integrated, innovative and consistent: it is integrated because it focuses on forging theharmonious community among people, and between man and society, and man and nature; it is innovative becausethe proposition seeks new perspectives and pathways and brings new products to simultaneously improve bothjustice and efficiency; and it is consistent in that it sticks to the idea of “DW & DG” throughout the spectrum of AIM,APPROACH and ACTION.