11月9日,第五届“金砖+”国际城市论坛在圣彼得堡召开,友成基金会理事长王平女士受邀发表演讲,本文为演讲实录。
右三为友成基金会理事长王平女士
女士们,先生们,
作为友成基金会的创始人,我对受邀参与这个话题的讨论感到非常荣幸。
我们今天讨论有关social finance以及social initiatives这个话题的重要性是显而易见的。然而社会金融和社会行动的发展并没有达到预期。究其原因,主要在于认知上的守旧以及由此连带产生的在工具和制度层面的落后。下面我将简要分析其中的三个主要障碍并提出相应的解决方案。
首先,传统的认知模式是最关键的原因。传统的认知模式表现在,长期以来,人们将社会和经济视为两个独立且互不相容的要素。更具体地说,就是仅仅将财务价值视为企业的核心价值所在,而企业在存续过程中对社会形成的其它价值或成本,则全部以外部性来加以看待。这些经济学上的外部性,在21世纪之前是被完全忽视的,也就是说,无论是企业产生的正外部性和负外部性,都未能以价值或成本的方式进入企业估值和核算体系之中。
为此,我们认为必须重新认识并定义社会及社会价值这个概念。首先,我们认为,社会价值不是和经济价值对应的概念,而是包括了经济价值以及传统经济学中所表述的所有外部性。价值的对象是整个社会,是一切物质和精神财富的创造。社会价值就是社会福祉,它表现为经济效益、社会效益和环境效益的总和。由此可见,当我们讨论“社会”这个概念的时候,不是剥离了“经济”或“个人”,也不是仅仅局限于SDG的十七个具体范畴,而是由所有社会成员组成的人民,这个“社会”可以小到社区,大到人类命运共同体的范畴。
而且我在这里所说的企业是指所有各行各业的企业,而不只是在教育、医疗、养老和环境领域的企业。
若就每一个企业而言,企业的社会价值不仅仅是通过承担社会责任而呈现的价值,更是包括主营业务为社会提供的价值,它包括通过产品为社会提供的使用价值,满足人们日益增长的物质文化需求,通过在生产过程中为社会增加的就业,通过依法纳税为国家所做的贡献。同时也包括企业正向的价值主张通过产品及服务给消费者的认知和行为带来积极正向的改变,比如给人的消费习惯带来改变,或有助于社会资本的形成,或有助于环境的改善。
第二个障碍是价值评估标准的先天不足,这是上述传统认知带来的直接结果。由于将社会和经济一分为二,传统的企业价值评估标准无法真实和完整地反映企业的社会价值创造情况。正外部性创造的社会价值无法得到体现,负外部性造成的社会成本也无法被公平补偿。
因此,需要建立新的社会价值评估标准和方法,以综合评估企业的社会价值。在实践中,友成基金会开发了一套被称作“三A三力”的评估标准和方法,即从Aim、Approach和Action三个维度同时评估一家企业的社会价值。因为既然是对价值创造的评估,那么价值创造的意愿(Aim)、价值创造的方法(Approach)和价值创造的结果(Action)都应该成为评估的内容,这就是“三A三力”最基本的概念模型。
今天,我很自豪地告诉大家,自2017年以来,这套标准已经被用于中国上市公司的评估,并且以此开发了金融产品,我们称之为社会价值投资——它实际上就是更广意义和更高层次的社会金融。由于时间的原因,我无法在此详细介绍。
第三个是现行财务报表体系落后于时代的需要,这也是传统认识的结果。现在基于财务会计准则的财务报表体系是工业文明的一种通用标准和语言,它建立在传统认知之上,它完全不考虑也不体现任何外部性成本和外部性的价值。所以必须对现有的报表体系进行改良,以更完整地反映企业在存续过程中的价值。
例如建立第四张报表,将许多以往被称为表外的、反映了外部性的指标纳入表内,同时改造资产负债表以成为社会价值资产负债表。这样,才能使企业参与社会行动以及激活social finance成为一种自发的行为。我们也在这些方面进行了研究和开发。
如果我们完成了以上三个方面的转变,那么,通过社会价值评估,可以让投资者看到企业价值创造的完整能力和贡献,从而改变他们的投资行为,就可以使得所有的投资成为social finance。而企业的所有行为也都是social initiatives。
另一方面,通过社会价值评估,让政府找到符合政策重点的、创造社会公共价值的企业,并且政府通过利好政策/政府投资等等来支持/鼓励社会创新型企业提供公共服务和公共产品,这可以是中国式现代化的一种探索。
友成基金会理事长王平女士与参会嘉宾合影
女士们、先生们,我们正处于一个剧变的时代,要彻底克服工业文明时代所积累而成的社会问题,就必须超越那个时代惯常的认知。上面分享的三点,表现了从一个观念认知到制度创新层层递进和深入的关系,它不仅建立在我们自己的思考之上,也建立在我们虽然有限但非常有前景的实践之上。
希望我的分享可以为大家带来更多的思考,如果能引起更多的关注或讨论,就会加深我们对今天大会讨论题目的理解和认识。
谢谢大家。
友成基金会理事长王平女士一行与论坛主办方合影
>>>附:英文原文
Ladies and gentlemen,
As the founder of the YouChange Foundation, I am honored to be invited to participate in this conference.
Today, we are discussing social finance and social initiatives, which are very important topics. But in reality, its development has not made the expected progress. The main reason is the outdated cognition, as well as the resulting backwardness of tools and systems.
Now, I will briefly analyze these three main obstacles and our own observations and initiatives.
Firstly, traditional cognitive pattern is the key obstacle. For a long time, people have regarded society and economy as two independent and incompatible elements. More specifically, financial value is regarded as the core value of the enterprise, while other values created or costs incurred for society are considered externalities. That is to say, whether it is the positive or negative externalities generated by the enterprise to society, they will not enter the valuation and accounting system in terms of value or cost.
Therefore, we believe it is necessary to reinterpret and redefine society and social values.
Social value is not a concept that corresponds to economic value, but includes economic value and all externalities expressed in traditional economics. The object of the value is the entire society, including the creation of all material and spiritual wealth. Social value is social welfare, manifested as the sum of economic, social, and environmental benefits. In this way, when we talk about society, we will not exclude the"economy" or "individuals" from it, nor limited it to the 17 categories of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So-called SDGs. Instead, it is composed of all people of society. It can be as small as a local community or as large as a community with a shared future for all humanity.
As for enterprises I am discussing in this context are not just those working in the fields of education, elderly care, or the environment.
For every enterprise, their social value is not only presented through social responsibility, but more importantly, the benefits they bring to society through their main business, including the use value of their products, employment opportunities provided, and tax contributions to the country. It also covers the positive value proposition of enterprises, which helps to change consumer attitudes and behaviors, leading to constructive changes in society; helps establish social capital or improve the environment.
The second obstacle is the insufficient evaluation criteria for the economy. Due to the separation of society and economy, traditional enterprise evaluation standards cannot truly and completely reflect the creation of social value by enterprises. The positive externalities created by enterprises cannot be reflected, and the social costs generated by negative externalities cannot be fairly compensated. We need new evaluation criteria.
In practice, YouChange has developed a set of evaluation standards and methods, known as the "3A" system, which assesses the social value of enterprises from three dimensions: Aim, Approach and Actions. It is an evaluation of the entire process of value creation-the intention to create value (Aim), the methods to create value (Approach), and the result of creating value (Action) are all included in this evaluation. It also integrates the economic, social, and environmental benefits achieved by enterprises into a unified framework.
Today, I am proud to inform you that since 2017, this set of standards has been used for the evaluation of some Chinese listed companies, and financial products have been developed based on this.
We call this social value investment, which is a broader and higher-level form of social finance. Due to time constraints, I am unable to provide a detailed introduction here.
The third challenge is the outdated financial reporting system based on financial accounting standards, which is a common standard and language of industrial civilization. However, it does not consider or reflect any external costs or values. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the existing reporting system to better reflect the company's value to the market and society.
For example, establish a fourth report that will include many previous off balance sheet assets. Which means integrating both positive and negative externalities into the balance sheet. Simultaneously convert the balance sheet into a social value balance sheet. This enables commercial companies to participate more spontaneously in social financing and social initiatives.
We are currently conducting research on this in order to obtain wider applications.
Once the above three transformations are completed, through social value assessment, investors can see the complete ability and contribution of a company's value creation, thereby changing their investment behavior. We hope this will transform all investments into social financing, and all behaviors of the company into actively creating social value.
In addition, the government or social development banks can use the fourth balance sheet to identify and support innovative enterprises that create social public value based on policy priorities, and support or encourage them to provide public services and products through preferential policies and government investment. This may be an exploration of Chinese path to modernization.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live in an era of great change. In order to overcome the social problems accumulated in the era of industrial civilization, we need to go beyond conventional thinking. The three points discussed here-cognitive pattern, company evaluation, and financial reporting systems-demonstrate how our understanding and institutional innovation are gradually interconnected. They are based on our thinking and our limited but promising experiment.
I hope these sharing will trigger more thinking and discussion, and deepen our understanding of the theme of today's meeting.
Thank you.