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- Happiness is not in money: a standard of public business capital will appear in Russia
Happiness is not in money: a standard of public business capital will appear in Russia
Russian companies will be able to confirm their social benefits with the help of new criteria for analyzing their activities. The standard of public capital of a business will allow assessing non-financial aspects of entrepreneurship. It is based on the thesis that business activities affect a wide range of parameters: from the state of the environment and the well-being of employees to participation in social projects and the achievement of national goals, experts say. What the introduction of the new standard will give is in the Izvestia material.
Unification of use
A standard of public business capital will be introduced in Russia. The relevant draft government decree is being prepared for approval by the Ministry of Economic Development. The document is aimed at unifying approaches to assessing non—financial aspects of business - the contribution to public welfare, socio-economic development and the implementation of national goals of the country.
The purpose of the standard is to help organizations voluntarily disclose information showing their contribution to the strategic development and modernization of the country.
"The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia is a regulator in the field of non-financial reporting. The standard was developed by the Ministry in order to further systematize, unify and compare data from public non-financial reporting on the organization's activities and its contribution to long—term public welfare and socio-economic development," Maxim Kolesnikov, First Deputy Minister of Economic Development, emphasizes, commenting on the draft resolution.
There are four assessment options with a different number of indicators depending on the size of the company and the level of disclosure of information about its activities (basic or full). In the first case, organizations will receive a shortened list of government support measures. The standard's indicators will include environmental, social, managerial, and economic blocks.
The basic version includes a set of 35 indicators for small and medium-sized enterprises, the full version contains 44 aspects. To evaluate large companies in the full and basic versions, 85 and 44 indicators are provided, respectively, says Asiyat Bagatyrova, Director General of the NGO "Public Capital".
The adoption of the document will create a transparent and unified system for assessing non-financial performance of companies, expects Svetlana Chupsheva, Director General of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives.
"This will increase investor confidence, expand business access to government support, and make Russian companies more attractive by objective criteria," she said.
The standard of public capital of business will allow not only to determine the contribution to the achievement of national development goals of the country, but also to develop a culture of responsible entrepreneurship, adds Anatoly Garbuzov, Minister of the Government of Moscow, Head of the Department of Investment and Industrial Policy.
A clear mechanism
The Ministry of Economic Development began the formation of basic guidelines for the preparation of non-financial reports with methodological recommendations, the press service of the department told Izvestia.
— It was important to take the first step — the recommendations set a general vector for the preparation and disclosure of sustainable development reports. At the same time, we received a request from business to develop a more systematic document — a reporting standard," the ministry explained.
Such standardization is a generally recognized global practice. It offers the market general rules for what should be included in reporting, where to get data from, and how to calculate indicators. All this is done to ensure that the reports are unified and comparable.
In general, the preparation of non-financial reports is relevant for public industrial companies, the banking sector, communications organizations and public offerings on the stock exchange, the Ministry of Economic Development emphasized.
The new standard includes a form of public non-financial reporting and a special index of business social capital. The latter will become the main tool for assessing the contribution of companies to ensuring the sustainable development of the Russian Federation.
The use of the index may be the basis for obtaining various measures of state support, but the document does not regulate the procedure for its provision and termination.
Enterprises will be able to complete the assessment in two ways: by publishing full non-financial statements or by providing the necessary data on key indicators. Both groups of companies and individual legal entities will be able to initiate verification.
Verification and confirmation of the evaluation results will be carried out by the NGO "Public Capital". However, in the future it is planned to increase the number of verifiers according to the established rules.
Betting on flexibility
Nikita Chaplin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes, believes that the development of a standard for public business capital is an important step in the development of socially responsible entrepreneurship in Russia. The document, in his opinion, not only systematizes non-financial reporting, but also creates clear, transparent criteria for assessing the contribution of companies to the development of the country.
"This is especially important when business becomes a full—fledged partner of the state in achieving national goals, whether it's supporting regions, creating high—quality jobs, or environmental initiatives," Chaplin is convinced.
The draft standard is an attempt to systematize ways to measure the contribution of companies to the development of society beyond traditional financial indicators, says Alexey Govyrin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.
— It is based on the idea that business activities affect a wider range of parameters: from the state of the environment and the well—being of employees to participation in social projects and the achievement of national goals, - confirms the parliamentarian.
It is planned to introduce a system of points and an index — a final quantitative assessment of the level of public capital, recalls investment advisor, founder of the online University of Finance Julia Kuznetsova. And four variants of the methodology will allow us to take into account the scale of the company, Govyrin notes. Due to this, small enterprises will be evaluated according to a shorter list of indicators than large ones.
Some of the indicators of the new social capital index are borrowed from international systems like GRI and SASB, the deputy points out. The remaining parameters are designed specifically to take into account the national context and objectives.
This is an analogue of ESG ratings, but with an emphasis on Russian realities: employment support, participation in infrastructure development, environmental protection, youth work, localization of production and other aspects reflecting the company's responsibility to society, lists Kuznetsova.
Reward for engagement
Nikita Chaplin sees its flexibility as the main advantage of the new approach. Companies of different sizes will be able to participate in the assessment without excessive bureaucratic burden.
— This is fair: businesses that invest in the public good should receive additional incentives, whether it's tax breaks, access to credit programs, or participation in government procurement. The standard will not only increase investor confidence, but also help identify those who are really working for the development of Russia, and not just formally comply with the requirements," the parliamentarian is sure.
For entrepreneurs, this approach can become not only a positioning tool, but also an additional channel of access to government support measures, Alexey Govyrin agrees. The fact of compliance with the requirements can be considered as a basis for inclusion in programs aimed at promoting socially oriented initiatives.
"Thus, a mechanism appears in which participation in solving socially significant tasks becomes not only a matter of reputation, but also an opportunity for strategic growth," the deputy points out.
Thanks to the standard, companies that demonstrate a high social impact will be able to apply for priority support measures: access to government orders, grants, subsidies, and tax preferences, says Yulia Kuznetsova.
The implementation of these measures will remain a key issue, Chaplin believes. It is important that they are targeted and really motivate the business.
"In this case, everyone will benefit from the implementation of the standard: the state, which will receive additional resources to solve socio—economic problems, and business, which will be able to scale its projects, and society, which will see the concrete results of such a partnership," emphasizes the interlocutor of Izvestia.
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