Why Investors Should Care About the Next Generation of Accounting Standards

We take accounting standards for granted — whether it is the U.S.’s generally accepted accounting principles or the International Financial Reporting Standards. We shouldn’t. In the U.S., accounting standards did not come into existence until after the formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934. Prior to that, every accounting firm — and there were a lot more than the Big Four of Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers — had its own accounting standards for how to measure and report on the items in the income statement and balance sheet.

同样，每个公司都有自己的审计标准，这显然使投资者难以比较公司的绩效来进行投资决策。会计标准，报告要求和报告数据的严格审计解决了问题。他们还使公司能够与彼此相互比较和基准，刺激竞争和创新。

The result is the deep and liquid capital markets we have today that have created enormous value. But because of a predominating emphasis on financial information, as well as an increasingly short-term focus of investors, there has been inadequate appreciation for how markets contribute to significant global problems such asclimate change,有限的自然资源的过度消费es, pollution, waste and inequality. Part of the solution to these unpriced externalities created by companies’ activities is the development of accounting standards and reporting requirements for nonfinancial information: namely, a company’s performance on the material environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues that affect society and the company’s ability to create value over the long term.

这是可持续发展会计标准委员会的使命，由此建立的非营利组织让罗杰斯2011年。迈克尔·布隆伯格，前纽约市长，是目前的椅子和前者证券交易委员会椅子玛丽沙皮罗is SASB’s vice chair. SASB’s approach is a simple but powerful one. Through a rigorous process, it identifies the material ESG information that should be reported on a company’s Form 10-K, or equivalent reporting document for non-U.S.-listed companies, and the recommended key performance indicator or metric for each issue. The ESG issues are grouped into the following five categories: environment, social capital, human capital, business models and innovation, and leadership and governance.

金融和非金融报告之间的一个重要差异是，可能构成物质信息的ESG问题是特定于部门的。例如，化学公司的碳排放是该公司的材料，但不是一个pharmaceuticalscompany, for which, instead, issues such as drug safety and side effects are material. For that reason, SASB has created a ten-sector classification system that comprises 79 industries. Provisional standards for all ten sectors will have been issued by the end of the first quarter of 2016.

SASB专注于对投资者有用的信息。在识别可能的材料信息时，它会对收入的影响，例如核心产品和服务的需求;成本，例如运营效率和成本结构;资产和负债，如估值;和资本成本，受到治理的影响，经营和风险的许可。

一旦发生了广泛的采用，投资者将能够使他们与财务表现的非金融业绩的同类苹果相同的比较。管理人员将能够将金融模式转变为更全面的商业模式，包括金融和非金融业绩之间的关系。这种发展将是快速增长的趋势的基础ESG集成,这源于资产业主把increasing pressure on asset managers to take into account ESG risks and opportunities. The extent to which they are able to do this in a credible way — there’s a lot of so-called greenwashing in the investment community, just as there is in the corporate community — depends upon having relevant and reliable performance information.

Companies will benefit from SASB’s work as well. They will be able to focus on a limited number of sustainability issues, those most likely to impact value — on average, SASB standards have five topics per industry. They will also be able to compare their sustainability performance against competitors’, spurring efforts to improve. Boards of directors will also benefit, as they are under increasing pressure from investors and other stakeholders to take responsibility for more than a company’s financial performance. Since their duty is to the corporation and not shareholders alone, they need to find a way to exercise this responsibility. Information supplied by management to the board will enable them to do so.

SASB的工作已确定对投资者重要的一些主要可持续性主题。毫不奇怪，领导人民气候变化，影响美国股权市场的93％，或33.8万亿美元。然而，气候变化问题各部门各不相同，包括石油和天然气储备的碳强度，对农作物产量，房地产，保险和卫生保健事件准备的影响。产品对准和安全问题 - 如假冒药物，食品质量和营养，汽车和航空公司安全，负责任的赌博和饮酒，以及产品研究和设计 - 影响股权市场的80％。资源强度和稀缺性，如圆形卫生保健设施和数据中心，在制造业中运输和稀土材料的燃料管理，影响美国股权市场的75％。

SASB的工作将有助于建立我们需要确保可持续社会的资本市场。其中一个明确的结果之一December United Nations climate change meetings in Paris (COP21)是对投资界必须发挥的关键作用的承认。对于美国U.N的17个可持续发展目标，可以说也是如此。2015年9月，标准是必要的起点，但他们自己不足。只有在公司采用它们的情况下使用它们和 - 最终 - 最终 - 如果他们受到财务信息的相同严格报告和审计要求，那么他们只有当公司采用它们的价值。

我们应首先关于形式10-k披露的现有监管。最终，将需要额外的规则制作 - 因为它是用于财务会计和报告。现在已经太快了，但是通过公司的公司充分利用SASB标准，并根据投资者使用信息，随访可能发生在未来三到五年内。

今天的优先事项是公司在外部报告中开始使用SASB标准以及投资者鼓励他们这样做。为了使这种情况发生，所谓的季度报告对话需要改变更有意义的对话。随着公司和投资者在根据这些标准开始使用信息，将确定改进的领域。一旦达到了SASB的标准，就达到了大量资本市场“分享”，秒可以考虑如何最好地使其强制性。

Companies and investors only stand to gain by adopting SASB’s standards, and society and future generations will as well. It’s time to get on with it.

Robert Eccles是主席Arabesque Partners那an ESG-quant investment firm with headquarters in London and a research group in Frankfurt.He is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, and was the founding chairman ofSASB.。

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