Save and develop: the contribution of business to Russia's national development goals was discussed in St. Petersburg

Since 2018, Russia's national Development Goals have become a rational and understandable basis for businesses to understand the direction of their work in the social and environmental sphere. Now, society and the business community are faced with the task of conducting an objective, comparable assessment of the contribution of different parties to achieving these goals. The participants of the expert session "Methodological approaches to assessing the contribution of business to the national development goals of Russia" of the Big City Ecology forum discussed what tools are available for this. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

National development goals as a driver of change

Social and environmental business investments directly affect the quality of life of people and the sustainability of territories. Their results are reflected in measurable changes in the daily environment and the availability of key benefits: educational and medical infrastructure, urban and social environment, security, opportunities for development, as well as in the state of the environment and environmental risks to the population. At the same time, both society and the authorities need to understand the real contribution of the corporate sector to achieving national goals, including "Environmental well-being," said Rashid Ismailov, Chairman of the Russian Ecological Society and Chairman of the Public Expert Council on the National Environmental Well-Being project.

Business projects aimed at the social sphere and the environment are being implemented today in many cities and towns of the country. At the same time, for more effective development of territories, it is necessary to combine the resources of the state, business, and the non-profit sector. The vector for combining these efforts is precisely set by Russia's national development goals, and objective assessments of the results of each side's contribution can contribute to greater involvement of participants and strengthen partnership.

However, in order to correctly answer the question of what changes have occurred in specific areas of responsibility with the participation of a particular party, what is its contribution to these changes, neither business nor government agencies have yet had a tool. Although the introduction of mechanisms and tools for such an assessment can, on the one hand, stimulate and expand the participation of businesses and non—profit organizations in achieving them, and, on the other hand, satisfy the needs of stakeholders — local residents, public opinion leaders and the expert community. It was this request for a contribution in comparison with national indicators that gave Rusal and En+ an incentive to develop an appropriate methodology, said Yuri Akinshin, Director of Sustainable Development at the companies.

New assessment methodology

The idea of assessing the contribution of business to social and environmental well-being in general, as well as to the achievement of sustainable development goals and national goals in particular, finds its application in several tools. This is the Sustainable Development Reporting Standard of the Ministry of Economic Development, the national standard "Business Reputation Index of Business Entities (ECG rating) and developed by the same Ministry of Economic Development, ASI, VEB.The Russian Federation, as well as relevant departments, leading business associations and the business community of the Standard of Public Capital of Business. In addition, business participation is evaluated in the framework of the National Award "Our Contribution", various national ratings of sustainable development and competitions "Leaders of responsible Business" of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, Rusal and En+ have initiated the development of a new methodology for assessing the contribution of business to Russia's national development goals, which is based on taking into account real indicators, not just financial investments. It links the social and environmental effects in cities and regions from business investments to key indicators of long-term national and federal projects.

Within the framework of this tool, the contribution is revealed in two complementary sections — absolute (in physical and financial terms) and relative, that is, the correlation of project results with official indicators of the territory and the dynamics of quality of life indices. This allows us to assess the importance of the company's contribution in the context of the overall level of development of the city or region.

"The uniqueness of the tool is that it allows us to translate the company's social and environmental investments into national development goals and show their actual contribution to achieving specific indicators in the cities and regions of the company's responsibility," said Ksenia Lopatkina, Director of the Consulting and Strategy Practice at Yang Group. Even with a limited statistical base, this approach makes it possible to form a more substantive and informed understanding of the role of business in the development of territories.

Assessing the contribution in terms of specific territories makes social and environmental investments measurable, manageable and evidence-based. This allows businesses, the government, and society to make decisions based on objective data and demonstrate their value.

According to the methodology, experts have already conducted a pilot assessment of 780 Rusal projects that were implemented in 2022-2024. Among them are projects of social investments and charitable programs, investment projects, including the construction of housing for employees and the airport terminal in Novokuznetsk, as well as environmental investment projects, including the protection of atmospheric air and water bodies, waste management and hazardous substances. The assessment was based on strategic state planning documents, current standards and methodologies, as well as tools for assessing the quality of life and the urban environment, including quality of life indices, etc.

Scaling prospects

"Now, at the stage of discussing the tool in the professional community, it is important for us to analyze as much as possible both the chosen methodology and the results that we received as a result of the pilot evaluation. Since the indicators of national goals and national projects have their own characteristics, and the goal of "Environmental well—being" is no exception, we hope that this will allow us to further improve the environmental and social investment management system and make decisions based on objective and comparable data," emphasized Yuri Akinshin.

The indicators for which the assessment is conducted are grouped into thematic blocks reflecting the key components of quality of life and well-being, and are comparable to the logic of generally accepted quality of life indices. This set reduces the risk of replacing social impact with internal corporate key performance indicators.

The proposed methodological approach to assessing the contribution of social and environmental investments is consistent with trends in the development of non-financial reporting both at the level of national and international standards. It is connected with the transition from aggregated indicators to deeper operational activities, said Elena Groznaya, Deputy General Director of the National ESG Alliance. "For the Alliance, this approach is of interest both as a tool that expands the possibilities of non—financial business reporting, and as one of the ways to present to the state, market, authorities and residents an understandable result of its efforts to reduce anthropogenic pressure and develop the social environment," she added.

On the other hand, the proposed approach makes it possible to identify the limitations of the national goals themselves and manage their achievement at the level of specific cities and enterprises, Rashid Ismailov noted. And according to Tatiana Guseva, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental Industrial Policy, the new methodology allows us to form metrics and quantitative estimates necessary for the transition from qualitative, taste judgments to a reasonable and transparent assessment of the real contribution of business to achieving the national development goals of Russia as a whole and to the environmental development of territories in particular. in particular.

The National ESG Alliance, whose members have already discussed the methodology on their site earlier, expressed its willingness to replicate the methodology proposed by Rusal and En+ and is currently developing a universal version of it together with the development team, which can be used by a wide variety of companies.