The end of ESG （ESG的终结）

Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex has a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.

Alex Edmans是伦敦商学院金融学教授。Alex拥有麻省理工学院富布赖特学者博士学位，曾担任沃顿商学院终身教授和摩根士丹利投资银行家。

原文为英文，刊于 Fiancial Management 2022年12月。中文译本未经作者授权、校对，供个人学习之用。本文遵循CC BY 4.0协议，转载请保留此信息

Abstract/摘要

ESG is both extremely important and nothing special. It's extremely important because it's critical to long-term value, and so any academic or practitioner should take it seriously, not just those with “ESG” in their research interests or job title. Thus, ESG doesn't need a specialized term, as that implies it's niche—considering long-term factors isn't ESG investing; it's investing. It's nothing special since it's no better or worse than other intangible assets that create long-term financial and social returns, such as management quality, corporate culture, and innovative capability. Companies shouldn't be praised more for improving their ESG performance than these other intangibles; investor engagement on ESG factors shouldn't be put on a pedestal compared to engagement on other value drivers. We want great companies, not just companies that are great at ESG.

ESG 既极其重要，又不足为奇。它之所以极其重要，是因为它对长期价值至关重要，因此任何学者或从业者都应该认真对待它，而不仅仅是那些在研究兴趣或职位名称中有“ESG”的人。因此，ESG 不需要一个专门的术语，因为这暗示它是小众的——考虑长期因素并不是 ESG 投资；这就是投资。它不足为奇，因为它并不比其他创造长期财务和社会回报的无形资产如管理质量、企业文化和创新能力更好或更差。公司在提升其 ESG 表现方面不应该比在这些其他无形资产方面得到更多的赞扬；投资者在 ESG 因素上的参与不应该被置于比其他价值驱动因素更高的地位。我们需要的是伟大的公司，而不仅仅是擅长 ESG 的公司。

1 INTRODUCTION /引言

Now is the peak of ESG. It's front and center in the minds of executives, investors, regulators, business students, and even the public. Major corporations are appointing Chief Sustainability Officers to the C-suite, justifying strategic decisions based on their ESG impact, and tying executive pay to ESG metrics. A total of 4375 investors managing 121 trillion USD had signed the Principles for Responsible Investment (“PRI”) by the end of 2021, dwarfing the 63 investors overseeing $6.5 trillion who helped found the PRI in 2006. Regulators are establishing taxonomies of which corporate activities may be labeled “sustainable,” and tiering funds by their ESG incorporation. Business schools are rushing to introduce ESG courses, establish ESG centers, and reinvent faculty as ESG experts. Newspapers are publishing dedicated ESG newsletters, and customers are increasingly basing their purchasing decisions on a company's ESG impact.

With this context, it seems crazy to title an article “The end of ESG.” But this title intends not to signal ESG's death, but ESG's evolution from a niche subfield into a mainstream practice. The biggest driver of this ascent is the recognition that ESG factors are critical to a company's long-term (financial) value. But then all executives and investors should take them seriously, not just those with “sustainability” in their job title. Considering long-term factors when valuing a company isn't ESG investing; it's investing. Indeed, there's not really such a thing as ESG investing, only ESG analysis.

现在是 ESG 的巅峰时期。它在企业高管、投资者、监管机构、商学院学生，甚至公众的心目中占据重要位置。大公司纷纷任命首席可持续发展官进入高层管理团队，基于 ESG 影响来制定战略决策，并将高管薪酬与 ESG 指标挂钩。截至2021年底，共有4375位管理着121万亿美元的投资者签署了《负责任投资原则》（PRI），这一数字远超2006年成立时63位管理着6.5万亿美元的投资者。监管机构正在制定可以被标记为“可持续”的企业活动分类法，并根据 ESG 纳入情况对基金进行分级。商学院竞相推出 ESG 课程，建立 ESG 中心，并将教师重塑为 ESG 专家。报纸纷纷推出专门的 ESG 通讯，消费者也越来越多地基于公司的 ESG 影响做出购买决策。

在这种背景下，给一篇文章取名为“ESG 的终结”似乎很疯狂。但这个标题并不是要宣告 ESG 的死亡，而是要表明 ESG 从一个小众领域演变成主流实践。推动这一上升的最大驱动力是认识到 ESG 因素对公司长期（财务）价值的重要性。因此，所有高管和投资者都应该认真对待这些因素，而不仅仅是那些在职务名称中有“可持续发展”的人。将长期因素纳入公司估值并不是 ESG 投资；这就是投资。实际上，根本没有所谓的 ESG 投资，只有 ESG 分析。

The value relevance of ESG was how I got into the topic in the first place, back in my PhD days when ESG was still niche. My job market paper was a theory of how blockholders (large shareholders) enhance a company's long-term value (Edmans, 2009). The model showed that blockholders don't just assess a company by its quarterly earnings; instead, they do a deep dive into its intangible assets, such as its corporate culture, customer loyalty, and innovative capability. Doing so is costly and time consuming, but their large stakes make it worthwhile. In turn, if a company knows that its key shareholders will assess it on long-term value not short-term earnings, this frees it to focus on the former and not fret so much about the latter.

Importantly, the shareholders were just that—shareholders. They weren't ESG investors; they weren't analyzing a company's long-term value because they were forced to by regulation or pressured to by clients. They just wanted to beat the market, and you can only do so with information that's not already in the price. Quarterly earnings are publicly available, but it's long-term factors that are hidden treasure. When seminar audiences asked me for examples of such investors, I'd reply Warren Buffett, Bill Miller, and Peter Lynch. None of these are ESG investors; they're simply long-term-oriented investors.

ESG 的价值关联性是我最初涉足这一领域的原因，早在我的博士研究时期，当时 ESG 还是一个小众领域。我的求职论文是关于主要股东（大股东）如何提升公司长期价值的理论（Edmans，2009）。模型显示，大股东不仅通过季度收益评估公司；相反，他们深入研究公司的无形资产，如企业文化、客户忠诚度和创新能力。这种做法既费时又费力，但由于他们持有大量股份，因此是值得的。反过来，如果公司知道其主要股东会基于长期价值而不是短期收益评估它，这将使公司专注于前者，而不必过多担忧后者。

重要的是，这些股东只是股东。他们不是 ESG 投资者；他们分析公司的长期价值不是因为受到法规的强制或客户的压力。他们只是想击败市场，而要做到这一点，只有通过价格中未包含的信息才能实现。季度收益是公开的，但长期因素是隐藏的宝藏。当研讨会观众问我这些投资者的例子时，我会回答沃伦·巴菲特、比尔·米勒和彼得·林奇。他们都不是 ESG 投资者；他们只是注重长期的投资者。

But there was one question I didn't yet have a good answer to. Why are blockholders needed at all—why companies can't just disclose the value of their intangible assets? I replied that intangibles were difficult to report credibly; there are few verifiable measures of items such as corporate culture. And even if there were, small shareholders might not understand their value relevance, or know how to change cell C23 in their model upon learning that a firm actively encourages dissenting viewpoints.

Yet I only had common sense to buttress my responses; back then, there was no evidence either way. So, in the final months of my PhD, I started a new paper. I took the “100 Best Companies to Work For in America” and found that they delivered higher shareholder returns than their peers over a 28-year period. The Best Companies list is highly visible. If markets were efficient, the Best Companies’ stocks would jump as soon as the list came out, preventing future outperformance. The superior returns imply that the market failed to fully incorporate employee satisfaction.

但有一个问题我还没有找到好的答案。为什么需要大股东——为什么公司不能只披露其无形资产的价值？我的回答是无形资产难以可靠地报告；企业文化等项目很少有可验证的衡量标准。即使有，小股东也可能不了解其价值关联性，或者不知道在得知公司积极鼓励不同观点时如何更改模型中的单元格 C23。

但我当时只有常识来支持我的回答；那时没有任何证据可以证明。所以，在博士研究的最后几个月里，我开始了一篇新论文。我选取了“美国最佳工作公司”中的100家公司，发现它们在28年期间的股东回报率高于同行。最佳公司名单是高度可见的。如果市场是有效的，最佳公司的股票在名单公布后就会跳涨，从而防止未来的超额回报。优越的回报表明市场未能完全吸收员工满意度。

I initially published the paper in a finance journal (Edmans, 2011); a management journal then invited me to write a management-oriented version (Edmans, 2012). Neither article mentioned ESG even once. I didn't study employee satisfaction because it's an ESG factor, but because it's a value-relevant factor. I wanted to show that the market overlooks important value drivers, and titled the finance paper “Does the Stock Market Fully Value Intangibles? Employee Satisfaction and Equity Prices.” Serendipitously, Lloyd Kurtz, who chaired the Moskowitz Prize for Socially Responsible Investing (“SRI”), invited me to submit my paper to the competition. I'd never thought of my research as being about SRI, but did some digging after Lloyd's email and found that many SRI investors indeed scrutinize worker welfare. I added some SRI implications into the paper, but doing so opened a mini Pandora's box. If the paper was about SRI, why study employee satisfaction and not other SRI screens such as Catholic values and animal rights? I stressed that human capital theories provide strong reasons for why employee satisfaction might be value relevant, but there weren't as clear justifications for those other factors, so any correlation might result from data mining.

If ESG is a set of value-relevant factors, then it's both extremely important and nothing special. ESG is extremely important because any academic or practitioner should care about the drivers of long-term value, particularly (for investors) ones that are mispriced by the market. Indeed, the title of this article is inspired by Thaler's (1999) “The End of Behavioral Finance,” which predicted that behavioral finance would become mainstream—to understand asset prices, it would become widely accepted that you need to study not only cash flows and discount rates, but also investor behavior. The same is true for ESG. Critics of capitalism argue that finance textbooks focus on short-term profit and need to be overhauled to incorporate ESG. As the new co-author adding ESG into a long-standing textbook (Brealey et al., 2022), I'd love to claim I'm radically reforming business education. But Finance 101 has always stressed how a company's worth is the present value of all its cash flows, including those in the very distant future. A company's relationships with its employees, customers, communities, suppliers, and the environment are highly value relevant; there's nothing particularly cultish, liberal, or—dare I say it—“woke” in considering them.

我最初在金融期刊上发表了这篇论文（Edmans，2011）；然后一家管理期刊邀请我写一篇面向管理的版本（Edmans，2012）。这两篇文章都没有提到 ESG。我研究员工满意度不是因为它是一个 ESG 因素，而是因为它是一个与价值相关的因素。我想证明市场忽视了重要的价值驱动因素，并将金融论文的标题定为“股市是否完全重视无形资产？员工满意度与股票价格”。机缘巧合的是，主持社会责任投资（SRI）莫斯科维茨奖的劳埃德·库尔茨邀请我将论文提交比赛。我从未认为我的研究是关于 SRI 的，但在收到劳埃德的电子邮件后进行了一些挖掘，发现许多 SRI 投资者确实仔细研究了员工福利。我在论文中加入了一些 SRI 的含义，但这样做打开了一个小潘多拉盒子。如果这篇论文是关于 SRI 的，为什么研究员工满意度而不是其他 SRI 筛选标准，如天主教价值观和动物权利？我强调人力资本理论为员工满意度的价值关联性提供了强有力的理由，但其他因素则没有那么明确的理由，因此任何相关性可能是数据挖掘的结果。

如果 ESG 是一组与价值相关的因素，那么它既极其重要，又不足为奇。ESG 极其重要，因为任何学者或从业者都应该关注长期价值的驱动因素，特别是（对于投资者来说）那些被市场错误定价的因素。事实上，这篇文章的标题灵感来自 Thaler（1999）的“行为金融学的终结”，该文预测行为金融学将成为主流——为了理解资产价格，人们将普遍接受不仅需要研究现金流和折现率，还需要研究投资者行为。对 ESG 也是如此。资本主义的批评者认为金融教科书关注短期利润，需要进行全面改革以纳入 ESG。作为新合著者，将 ESG 纳入长期教科书（Brealey 等，2022），我很想说我正在彻底改革商业教育。但金融 101 一直强调公司的价值是所有现金流的现值，包括那些非常遥远的未来。公司与员工、客户、社区、供应商和环境的关系高度相关；考虑这些因素并没有什么特别的宗教、自由主义，或者——敢说一句——“觉醒”意味。

But this article aims to go beyond just applying Thaler's analogy to ESG. And that's where the second point comes in—that ESG is “nothing special.” This isn't meant to be disparaging, but to highlight how ESG is no better or worse than other factors that drive long-term value. This matters for several reasons. First, ESG shouldn't be put on a pedestal compared to other value drivers. Companies and investors are falling over themselves to demonstrate their commitment to ESG, with company performance on ESG metrics given a special halo, and investors praised even more for engaging on ESG issues than productivity, capital allocation, and strategy. In some cases, such as Danone and the very many ESG funds that underperform, this may lead to ESG being prioritized at the expense of long-term value. Second, practitioners shouldn't rush to do something special for ESG factors that they wouldn't for other intangibles, such as demand that every company tie executive pay to them, or reduce them to simple quantitative metrics. Third, many of the controversies surrounding ESG become moot when we view it as a set of long-term value factors. It's no surprise that ESG ratings aren't perfectly correlated, because it's legitimate to have different views on the quality of a company's intangibles. We don't need to get into angry fights between ESG believers and deniers, because reasonable people can disagree on how relevant a characteristic is for a company's long-term success. On the flipside, if ESG is nothing special, then some practices we implement for ESG could be rolled out to other areas of finance. Regulators are cracking down on ESG funds that are greenwashing—and they should similarly scrutinize other investors who aren't doing what they say, such as actively managed funds that are closet indexers.

This article discusses how our perspectives on topical ESG issues change when we view them through a long-term value lens—as drivers of long-term value, no more, no less—rather than an ESG lens—as a magic set of factors that companies, investors, and even professors need to demonstrate their commitment to over and above other value drivers.

但这篇文章的目的是超越单纯将 Thaler 的类比应用于 ESG。而这就是第二点的意义——ESG“没什么特别的”。这并不是贬低，而是强调 ESG 不比其他驱动长期价值的因素更好或更差。这一点很重要，原因有几个。首先，ESG 不应该被置于比其他价值驱动因素更高的位置。公司和投资者争先恐后地展示他们对 ESG 的承诺，公司在 ESG 指标上的表现被赋予特别的光环，投资者在 ESG 问题上的参与比在生产力、资本分配和战略上的参与得到更多赞扬。在某些情况下，如达能和许多表现不佳的 ESG 基金，这可能导致 ESG 优先于长期价值。其次，从业者不应该急于为 ESG 因素做一些特别的事情，比如要求每家公司都将高管薪酬与其挂钩，或将其简化为简单的量化指标。第三，当我们将 ESG 视为一组长期价值因素时，围绕 ESG 的许多争议就变得不再重要。ESG 评级不完全相关并不奇怪，因为对公司无形资产质量有不同的看法是合理的。我们不需要在 ESG 信徒和怀疑者之间进行激烈的争斗，因为理性的人可以对某一特征对公司长期成功的相关性持不同意见。另一方面，如果 ESG 没什么特别的，那么我们为 ESG 实施的一些做法可以推广到金融的其他领域。监管机构正在打击进行洗绿的 ESG 基金——他们也应该同样审查那些没有履行承诺的其他投资者，如假装是积极管理的基金。

本文讨论了当我们通过长期价值视角而不是 ESG 视角看待热门 ESG 问题时，我们对这些问题的看法会如何改变——作为长期价值的驱动因素，仅此而已，而不是一套公司、投资者甚至教授需要展示他们超越其他价值驱动因素的承诺的神奇因素。

2 ESG METRICS /ESG 指标

Investors, regulators, and other stakeholders are increasingly demanding that companies report their performance along various ESG metrics. Many are calling for a common set that all firms be compelled to disclose, as well as standards to ensure they're all measured in the same way.

Under the ESG lens, this is a no-brainer. Companies need to report their ESG performance to prove they're walking the walk, rather than just talking the talk. And just like financial statements, they should be comparable so that shareholders can see how firms stack up to their peers. In turn, investors can demonstrate to their clients how truly green they are, if their portfolio ticks more ESG boxes than their competitors’.

投资者、监管机构和其他利益相关者越来越多地要求公司报告其在各种 ESG 指标上的表现。许多人呼吁制定一套所有公司必须披露的通用指标，并建立标准以确保所有指标的测量方式一致。

从 ESG 角度来看，这是不言而喻的。公司需要报告其 ESG 绩效，以证明其言行一致。就像财务报表一样，这些指标应该是可比的，以便股东能够看到公司在同行中的表现。反过来，投资者可以向客户展示他们的投资组合是否比竞争对手更绿色。

It might seem that ESG metrics are also a no-brainer under the long-term value lens—if ESG drives long-term value, then investors need ESG metrics to be able to estimate long-term value. Indeed, this was the solution that my job market audiences proposed. If companies disclosed measures of long-term value, then the market will focus on them rather than short-term earnings.

But if ESG drives long-term value, then it's no more special than any other intangible assets that do so. And it's particularly nonspecial since we've known for at least 30 years that the value of a company depends on more than just financial factors. Kaplan and Norton (1992) introduced the “balanced scorecard” that “complements the financial measures with operational measures on customer satisfaction, internal processes, and the organization's innovation and improvement activities—operational measures that are the drivers of future financial performance.” Kaplan and Norton stressed the importance of reporting measures not because they're part of a framework or a box to be ticked, but because they “are the drivers of future financial performance”—their article is entitled “The Balanced Scorecard—Measures That Drive Performance.”

从长期价值角度来看，ESG 指标似乎也是理所当然的——如果 ESG 驱动长期价值，那么投资者需要 ESG 指标来估算长期价值。事实上，这正是我的求职演讲观众提出的解决方案。如果公司披露长期价值的衡量标准，市场将关注这些指标，而不是短期收益。

但如果 ESG 驱动长期价值，它就不比其他驱动长期价值的无形资产更特别。尤其不特别的是，我们至少在30年前就知道，公司价值不仅取决于财务因素。卡普兰和诺顿（1992）提出的“平衡计分卡”就“通过客户满意度、内部流程以及组织的创新和改进活动的运营指标，补充了财务指标——这些运营指标是未来财务绩效的驱动因素。”卡普兰和诺顿强调报告这些衡量标准的重要性，不是因为它们是某个框架的一部分或必须打勾的选项，而是因为它们“是未来财务绩效的驱动因素”——他们的文章标题是《平衡计分卡——驱动绩效的衡量标准》。

ESG has helped advance the balanced scorecard from Kaplan and Norton's time. It highlights how the value of a company depends not only on its financial and operational performance, but also its stakeholder relationships. But viewing metrics through a long-term value lens rather than an ESG lens shifts our thinking in two ways. First, it widens our perspective, because many value drivers don't fall under the narrow umbrella of ESG. Companies should tune out the noise created by reporting frameworks and stakeholder demands and instead ask—what are the attributes that we ourselves want to monitor, because they're “measures that drive performance?” In other words, what are the Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”), or leading indicators, that help us assess whether our company is on track? These KPIs will certainly include ESG metrics, such as carbon emissions for an energy company, but they'll also include other dimensions such as customer net promoter scores or new patent generation. This perspective moves ESG from a compliance exercise—a set of boxes to be ticked—to a value creation tool.

The most important broadening is that most ESG metrics capture “do no harm”—the amount of damage a company inflicts upon society, such as water usage, particulate production, and worker injuries. That's certainly important, but long-term value is much more about whether a company “actively does good”; in Edmans (2020), I refer to the latter as growing the pie, and the former as splitting the pie fairly. The measures that track value creation will be specific to a company's strategy. Unilever gauges the number of citizens it reaches through its hygiene campaigns, Olam measures the number of smallholder farmers who participate in its sustainable farming programs, and MYBank reports the number of start-ups that it lends to who'd never obtained a bank loan before.

ESG 帮助推动了卡普兰和诺顿时代的平衡计分卡。它强调了公司价值不仅依赖于财务和运营绩效，还依赖于其与利益相关者的关系。但通过长期价值视角而不是 ESG 视角看待指标会在两个方面改变我们的思考。首先，它拓宽了我们的视角，因为许多价值驱动因素不在 ESG 的狭义范畴内。公司应忽略由报告框架和利益相关者需求创造的噪音，而是问自己——我们自己想要监控哪些属性，因为它们是“驱动绩效的衡量标准”？换句话说，哪些是关键绩效指标（KPI）或领先指标，帮助我们评估公司是否在正确的轨道上？这些 KPI 肯定会包括 ESG 指标，例如能源公司的碳排放量，但也包括其他方面，如客户净推荐值或新专利的生成。这种观点将 ESG 从一项合规性工作——一系列需要打勾的框框——转变为一种创造价值的工具。

最重要的拓展是大多数 ESG 指标捕捉“无害”——公司对社会造成的损害程度，如水资源使用、颗粒物排放和工人受伤。这当然重要，但长期价值更多的是关于公司是否“积极行善”；在 Edmans（2020）中，我将后者称为“增长蛋糕”，而前者称为“公平分蛋糕”。跟踪价值创造的衡量标准将根据公司的战略而有所不同。联合利华衡量其通过卫生运动覆盖的公民数量，Olam 衡量参与其可持续农业计划的小农数量，MYBank 报告其向首次获得银行贷款的初创企业发放的贷款数量。

A common set of ESG metrics doesn't stop companies from going further and reporting additional bespoke factors. But common measures will likely get most focus, since everyone reports them—that's why some investors fixate on quarterly earnings, even though companies have been disclosing nonfinancial dimensions for decades. In turn, if investors prioritize these common measures, this will encourage executives to do so too because they'll be evaluated on them, at the expense of the dimensions that actually create value (Edmans et al., 2016).

Common measures are also easy to compare as they don't require expertise. Even if I have no knowledge of basketball, I can still see which NBA players score the most points, even though they're only one dimension of quality. Similarly, an investor who knows little about a company's business model can still notice that 8 tons of emissions are higher than 5. Indeed, some of the biggest calls for common metrics are from people late to the ESG bandwagon, because reducing an art to a number comparison exercise allows everyone to join the party.

Second, replacing the ESG lens with the long-term value lens focuses our perspective, as it suggests that companies should report ESG factors only if they “drive performance”—a leading indicator is one that leads to future outcomes.1 The first shift in thinking stressed that driving performance is a sufficient condition to report a KPI; it doesn't matter if it's an “ESG” metric or not. This second shift highlights that it's also a necessary condition. This focus is important, because there are literally hundreds of ESG metrics that companies could report. Not only would this divert a company's attention from actually creating value to reporting on value, it would ironically reduce transparency to investors and stakeholders as they won't know where to look.

一套通用的 ESG 指标并不会阻止公司进一步报告额外的定制因素。但通用衡量标准可能会获得最多关注，因为每个人都报告它们——这就是为什么一些投资者会执着于季度收益，即使公司已经披露了数十年的非财务维度。反过来，如果投资者优先考虑这些通用衡量标准，这将鼓励高管们也这样做，因为他们将被这些标准评估，而牺牲了那些实际创造价值的维度（Edmans 等，2016）。

通用衡量标准也容易比较，因为它们不需要专业知识。即使我对篮球一无所知，我也能看出哪些 NBA 球员得分最多，尽管这只是质量的一个维度。同样，不太了解公司商业模式的投资者也能注意到8吨排放量高于5吨。事实上，一些对通用指标呼声最高的人是那些刚加入 ESG 行列的人，因为将艺术简化为数字比较练习可以让每个人都参与其中。

其次，用长期价值视角取代 ESG 视角将我们的思维聚焦，因为它表明公司应报告 ESG 因素仅当它们“驱动绩效”时——领先指标是指引致未来结果的指标。思维方式的第一个转变强调了驱动绩效是报告 KPI 的充分条件；无论它是否是“ESG”指标都无所谓。第二个转变强调了它也是一个必要条件。这种聚焦很重要，因为公司可以报告的 ESG 指标多达数百个。这不仅会使公司注意力从实际创造价值转移到报告价值上，还会讽刺地减少投资者和利益相关者的透明度，因为他们不知道该关注哪里。

2.1 ESG-linked pay / 与ESG挂钩的薪酬

Many companies are going beyond simply reporting ESG metrics to linking pay to them. A PwC (2022) study found that 92% of large U.S. companies and 72% of large U.K. firms are using ESG metrics in their incentive plans. Some investors, on both sides of the Atlantic, argue that all firms should tie executive pay, at least in part, to ESG. Regulators are contemplating requiring such a link.

Such ties make sense under the ESG lens. Companies obtain a public relations boost from linking pay to ESG, as it suggests they care so much about ESG that they pay for it. Investors who loudly call for every company to incorporate ESG metrics in bonuses are seen as ESG pioneers. But under the long-term value lens, it's far from clear cut. The balanced scorecard stressed the importance of paying close attention to nonfinancial metrics, but Kaplan and Norton (1992) never advocated putting them into compensation contracts. Doing so is unnecessary—if ESG metrics are indeed relevant for long-term value, then tying pay to long-term value is sufficient to encourage executives to bolster them, as found by Flammer and Bansal (2017). Even worse, they could backfire by prompting CEOs to focus only on the ESG dimensions in the contract, and not the myriad of other value drivers, as predicted by the multitasking model of Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991). For example, paying an executive based on demographic diversity may discourage her from hiring White males who bring socioeconomic or cognitive diversity, or lead her to focus on diversity and not inclusion. Since only quantitative metrics can be put into a contract, ESG-linked pay may cause CEOs to focus on them at the expense of the qualitative. They'd hit the target, but miss the point. [Correction added on February 2023, after first online publication: last line has been modified.]

For most drivers of long-term value, such as patents, net promoter score, and customer attrition, companies will report them—and scrutinize them very carefully, not just looking at whether they've gone up or down but understanding why. However, they'll stop short of linking pay to them. This should generally be the approach for ESG metrics.2

许多公司不仅仅是报告 ESG 指标，还将高管薪酬与这些指标挂钩。据普华永道（2022年）的一项研究显示，92%的美国大公司和72%的英国大公司在其激励计划中使用了ESG指标。大西洋两岸的一些投资者认为，所有公司至少应该部分地将高管薪酬与ESG挂钩。监管机构也在考虑要求这种关联。

从ESG角度来看，这种联系是合乎逻辑的。公司通过将薪酬与ESG挂钩，可以提升公共形象，表明他们对ESG的重视。那些大声呼吁每家公司将ESG指标纳入奖金的投资者，被视为ESG的先锋。然而，从长期价值的角度来看，情况并不那么明确。平衡计分卡强调密切关注非财务指标的重要性，但卡普兰和诺顿（1992年）从未主张将其纳入薪酬合同。这样做并不是必要的——如果ESG指标确实与长期价值相关，那么将薪酬与长期价值挂钩就足以鼓励高管们加强这些指标，这一点在Flammer和Bansal（2017年）的研究中得到了证实。更糟糕的是，这可能会适得其反，促使CEO只关注合同中的ESG维度，而忽视其他众多的价值驱动因素，正如Holmstrom和Milgrom（1991年）的多任务模型所预测的那样。例如，根据人口多样性支付高管薪酬可能会使她不愿雇佣能够带来社会经济或认知多样性的白人男性，或者使她只关注多样性而不关注包容性。由于只有定量指标可以纳入合同，ESG挂钩的薪酬可能会导致CEO专注于这些指标，而忽视定性的方面。他们可能达到了目标，却失去了意义。

对于大多数长期价值的驱动因素，如专利、净推荐值和客户流失，公司会报告这些指标——并非常仔细地审查它们，不仅仅是看它们是上升还是下降，而是了解为什么。然而，他们不会将薪酬与这些指标挂钩。这通常应该是对ESG指标的处理方式。

2.2 The other motive for ESG / ESG的其他动机

But there's an elephant in the room. I've explained that the main reason for the rise in ESG is its relevance to long-term value. Yet that's far from the only reason—we care about ESG because of the externalities it imposes on society. A 2013 Trucost report estimated the environmental costs created by business at $4.7 trillion per year, and this figure has likely soared since then (Trucost, 2013). Beyond the environment, business workplace practices can lead to burnout, physical injuries, and even deaths; whom companies hire and promote affects social inequality and inclusion. By definition, externalities don't affect a company's profits, even in the long run. Thus, ESG advocates argue that we should require companies to disclose externalities, so they can be held accountable for reducing them; tying CEO pay to externalities will further incentivize such a reduction.

But intangible assets also have substantial externalities: Haskel and Westlake's (2017) book on intangibles highlights “spillovers” and “synergies” as two of their defining features. An innovative new product creates consumer surplus above and beyond what customers pay for it, suppliers earn producer surplus from selling inputs for more than their cost, and competitors build on the innovation to launch their own versions. Training employees increases their human capital, and many of the benefits won't be captured by the firm providing the training: they may leave for a competitor, relocate for family reasons, or be more likely to find another job if their current employer shuts down—attenuating the large social costs suffered when a major local employer closes (e.g., Goldstein, 2017). Turning to a negative externality, a sluggish executive team can impose huge costs on society—Kodak went bankrupt after missing the digital revolution; it had been worth $31 billion to its shareholders at its peak and employed 150,000 people at one point.

但是，还有一个显而易见的问题。虽然我解释了ESG兴起的主要原因是其与长期价值的相关性，但这远不是唯一的原因——我们关心ESG是因为它对社会产生的外部性。Trucost（2013年）的一份报告估计，企业造成的环境成本每年达4.7万亿美元，这一数字可能已经大幅上升（Trucost，2013年）。除了环境，企业的工作场所实践可能导致员工倦怠、身体受伤，甚至死亡；公司招聘和晋升的人会影响社会的不平等和包容性。按照定义，外部性不会影响公司的利润，即使在长期内也是如此。因此，ESG倡导者认为我们应该要求公司披露外部性，以便让它们对减少这些外部性负责；将CEO薪酬与外部性挂钩将进一步激励减少这些外部性。

但无形资产也有大量的外部性：Haskel和Westlake（2017年）关于无形资产的书中强调了“溢出效应”和“协同效应”是它们的两个定义特征。一项创新的新产品会为消费者带来超过他们支付的消费者剩余，供应商通过销售超过成本的投入获得生产者剩余，竞争对手基于创新推出自己的版本。培训员工会增加他们的人力资本，而许多好处不会被提供培训的公司所捕获：他们可能会离开竞争对手，为家庭原因搬迁，或者如果他们当前的雇主倒闭，他们更有可能找到另一份工作——减轻了当主要本地雇主关闭时社会承受的大量社会成本（例如，Goldstein，2017年）。转向负外部性，管理团队的迟缓可能会对社会造成巨大成本——柯达在错过数字革命后破产；它在巅峰时期曾为股东创造了310亿美元的价值，并一度雇佣了150,000人。

Just as for financial returns, ESG shouldn't be treated differently from other drivers of social returns. One could justifiably argue that the externalities arising from some ESG issues, such as climate change, are particularly important, but this changes the magnitude of the response, not the type. All externalities are a market failure, and thus are best dealt with through government intervention to correct this failure. Governments can provide public goods themselves, or subsidize, tax, or regulate externality-producing activities, such as taxing carbon emissions, imposing minimum wages, and introducing diversity quotas. It's the government that is best placed to address these externalities, since it's democratically elected by a country's citizens, whereas investors disproportionately represent the elites and thus may underweight, for example, the impact of decarbonization on blue-collar oil and gas jobs.

But real-life governments don't address all externalities. First, even if they're well-functioning, governments can't regulate qualitative factors such as corporate culture or management initiative, because they're hard to measure. Investors thus have a particular role to play in monitoring these issues, but can only do so effectively if they don't reduce them to simple numbers. The government should regulate all quantitative ESG issues, and so the only ones for investors to address are qualitative, highlighting the inconsistency of a metrics-driven approach.

就像财务回报一样，ESG不应该与其他社会回报驱动因素区别对待。有人可能正当理由地认为，一些ESG问题（如气候变化）产生的外部性特别重要，但这改变的是响应的程度，而不是类型。所有外部性都是市场失灵，因此最好通过政府干预来纠正这种失灵。政府可以自己提供公共产品，或对产生外部性的活动进行补贴、征税或监管，如对碳排放征税、引入最低工资和多样性配额。政府最适合解决这些外部性，因为它是由国家公民民主选举产生的，而投资者则不成比例地代表了精英，因此可能会低估，例如，脱碳对蓝领石油和天然气工作的影响。

但现实中的政府并未解决所有外部性。首先，即使它们运作良好，政府也无法监管如企业文化或管理主动性等定性因素，因为这些因素难以衡量。因此，投资者在监控这些问题上有特殊的作用，但只有在他们不将其简化为简单的数字时才能有效。政府应该监管所有定量的ESG问题，因此投资者唯一需要解决的是定性问题，这突显了以指标驱动的方法的不一致性。

Second, the government may not be well-functioning—it may fail to regulate externalities that the electorate cares about due to lobbying or sluggishness. As a result, companies could legitimately argue that they should pursue ESG, even it doesn't improve long-term value, due to its externalities. This is the one case in which this article's thesis no longer applies—ESG investing is different from investing, and ESG is different from other value drivers, because it's pursued to achieve societal goals even at the expense of shareholder returns. Then, the implications are quite different. Companies should be up-front that they're pursuing sacrificing shareholder returns to pursue ESG, and thus need a clear mandate from shareholders to do so. Investors may be happy to give such a mandate—pension funds might rationally sacrifice a few basis points of financial return to reduce a company's carbon emissions, because pensioners care not only about their income in retirement but the state of the planet. There is a trade-off, but shareholders believe that the trade-off is more than worth it. In turn, funds that intend to sacrifice financial returns to pursue societal goals should be transparent about this to their clients.3

We've discussed how the defining feature of ESG is not its link to long-term returns, nor its positive externalities, both of which are shared with intangible assets. If, instead, the defining feature of ESG is the fact that it's sometimes at the expense of long-term value, then it might not be put on such a pedestal.

其次，政府可能运作不良——它可能由于游说或迟缓而未能监管选民关心的外部性。因此，公司可以合法地争辩说，即使ESG不改善长期价值，他们也应该追求ESG，因为它的外部性。这是本文论点不再适用的一个情况——ESG投资不同于投资，ESG不同于其他价值驱动因素，因为它是为了实现社会目标，即使以牺牲股东回报为代价。因此，影响是截然不同的。公司应该坦率地承认他们正在牺牲股东回报来追求ESG，并因此需要股东的明确授权。投资者可能愿意给予这样的授权——养老金基金可能会理性地牺牲几个基点的财务回报来减少公司的碳排放，因为养老金领取者不仅关心他们的退休收入，还关心地球的状况。这是一种权衡，但股东相信这种权衡是值得的。反过来，打算牺牲财务回报来追求社会目标的基金应该向客户明确这一点。

我们已经讨论了ESG的定义特征既不是与长期回报的关联，也不是其正的外部性，这些特征都与无形资产共享。如果，取而代之的是，ESG的定义特征是有时以牺牲长期价值为代价，那么它可能不会被放在如此崇高的位置。

3 ESG FUNDS / ESG 基金

Money is pouring into ESG funds. In 2020, $17.1 trillion ($1 in every $3 under professional management) was invested in ESG strategies in the United States—that is 42% higher than in 2018, and 25 times as high as in 1995—with similar growth around the world. Hartzmark and Sussman (2019) find causal evidence that investors flood into ESG funds with higher Morningstar globe ratings.

One reason for their popularity is the belief that ESG investing systematically outperforms. The United Kingdom's largest retail broker emailed all its clients claiming that “study after study shows that businesses with positive ESG characteristics have outperformed their lower ranking peers.” The evidence is far more ambiguous than claimed (see the survey of Matos, 2020), but even if it were clear-cut, academic research has documented a huge number of other investment strategies that outperform (see, e.g., McLean & Pontiff, 2016). If savers are interested in alpha, then they shouldn't prioritize ESG over other characteristics that create alpha.

资金正大量涌入ESG基金。2020年，美国在ESG策略上的投资达到17.1万亿美元（每3美元中就有1美元由专业管理机构管理），比2018年增长42%，是1995年的25倍，全球范围内也呈现类似的增长趋势。Hartzmark和Sussman（2019年）的研究发现，投资者倾向于涌向那些拥有更高Morningstar地球评级的ESG基金。

其受欢迎的原因之一是认为ESG投资系统性地表现优异。英国最大的零售经纪商曾向其所有客户发送邮件，声称“研究显示，具有积极ESG特征的企业表现优于其低排名同行。”尽管证据远比其所声称的模糊（见Matos，2020年的综述），但即使证据确凿，学术研究已经记录了大量其他表现优异的投资策略（见McLean & Pontiff，2016年）。如果储户对超额收益感兴趣，他们不应优先考虑ESG而忽视其他能创造超额收益的特征。

Of course, long-term financial returns aren't the only motive to invest in ESG funds. Another is to change company behavior—improve its ESG performance, thus creating more positive externalities. Impact can be achieved through two channels: exit and voice (see the surveys of Edmans [2014] and Edmans & Holderness [2017]). Exit involves divesting from an ESG laggard, driving down its stock price. Ex post, this increases its cost of capital and hinders its expansion; ex ante, the company might boost its ESG performance to avoid being sold (Edmans et al., 2022). However, this channel works for all measures of performance, not just ESG ones. Investing in innovative companies with great management teams and strong cultures helps them create more positive externalities, as well as encouraging firms to improve these dimensions in the first place. Voice involves engaging with a company through voting, private meetings, and—if necessary—public activism, to cut its carbon footprint or improve its employee diversity. Such actions can indeed create value for both shareholders and society (Dimson et al., 2015; Hoepner et al., 2022), but so can engagement on other topics (Brav et al., 2015, 2018). Cutting unnecessary costs improves investor returns, reduces resource usage, and increases a company's resilience, but shareholders obtain far less credit for it than ESG engagement.

Regulators, the media, and investors are cracking down on ESG funds for not being ESG enough—for holding stocks in brown industries, and for sometimes voting against ESG proposals. But blanket divestment is often not the most effective way to improve corporate ESG behavior (Edmans et al., 2022) and many ESG proposals do not create long-term value (Gantchev & Giannetti, 2021). Even setting aside these concerns, funds should absolutely be held to account for doing what they say. Yet it's not clear why investors in non-ESG funds deserve any less protection. Any thematic fund claims to follow a strategy. Does the Jupiter Global Financial Innovation hold only companies that are truly financially innovative? Does the Capital Group New World fund only invest in the most frontier economies? Should a value fund be punished for buying stocks that aren't actually good value? What about a growth fund who owns firms that don't end up growing? Cooper et al. (2005) find that funds that changed their name to match current “hot” styles (e.g., adding “Cautious” in a downturn or “Growth” in an upswing) enjoyed abnormal inflows of 28% over the next year—even if their actual holdings didn't change.

And it's not just thematic funds that make pledges—any actively managed fund claims to beat the market. But a fund that underperforms the market 5 years in a row, costing its investors thousands of dollars in retirement savings, is unlikely to be as publicly shamed as a manager of a sustainable fund who opposes a high-profile ESG proposal. Funds that consistently underperform, actively managed funds that are closet indexers, and thematic funds that persistently deviate from their theme should be scrutinized as much as their ESG counterparts.

当然，长期财务回报并不是投资ESG基金的唯一动机。另一个动机是改变公司行为——提高其ESG表现，从而创造更多的正外部性。影响可以通过两种途径实现：退出和发声（见Edmans [2014]和Edmans & Holderness [2017]的综述）。退出涉及剥离ESG落后者，压低其股价。事后，这增加了其资本成本，阻碍其扩展；事前，公司可能会提升其ESG表现以避免被出售（见Edmans等人，2022年）。然而，这种途径适用于所有绩效指标，不仅仅是ESG。投资于具有创新精神、优秀管理团队和强大文化的公司，有助于它们创造更多正外部性，同时鼓励公司首先改进这些方面。发声涉及通过投票、私人会议以及在必要时公开行动，促使公司减少碳足迹或改善员工多样性。这类行动确实能为股东和社会创造价值（见Dimson等人，2015年；Hoepner等人，2022年），但在其他话题上的互动同样如此（见Brav等人，2015年，2018年）。削减不必要的成本可以提高投资者回报，减少资源使用，并增加公司的韧性，但股东对这一点的关注远不及对ESG互动的关注。

监管机构、媒体和投资者正在严厉批评ESG基金不够“ESG”——因为它们持有棕色行业的股票，有时还反对ESG提案。但全面剥离往往不是改善企业ESG行为的最有效方法（见Edmans等人，2022年），而且许多ESG提案并不创造长期价值（见Gantchev & Giannetti，2021年）。即使撇开这些问题，基金仍应对其所说的事情负责。然而，并不清楚为什么非ESG基金的投资者应获得更少的保护。任何主题基金都声称遵循某种策略。Jupiter全球金融创新基金是否只持有真正金融创新的公司？Capital Group新世界基金是否只投资于最前沿的经济体？价值基金是否应因购买不实际具有良好价值的股票而受惩罚？增长基金是否应因拥有未能成长的公司而受到惩罚？Cooper等人（2005年）发现，那些根据当前“热门”风格（例如，在低迷时期添加“谨慎”或在上升时期添加“增长”）改变名称的基金，在接下来一年中享有28%的异常资金流入——即使它们的实际持股没有变化。

不仅仅是主题基金作出承诺——任何主动管理基金都声称能跑赢市场。但一只连续5年跑输市场的基金，使其投资者在退休储蓄上损失了数千美元，不太可能像反对高调ESG提案的可持续基金经理那样受到公开羞辱。表现持续不佳的基金、实质上是被动管理的主动管理基金以及始终偏离其主题的主题基金应与ESG基金一样受到严格审查。

4 ESG CONTROVERSIES / ESG 争议

4.1 ESG ratings / ESG 评级

Viewing ESG as a set of long-term value drivers also helps defuse many of the controversies surrounding it. One is the significant disagreement between ESG rating agencies (Berg et al., 2022). Critics interpret this as evidence that rating agencies are failing—why can't they agree about a company's ESG, like S&P, Moody's, and Fitch do about creditworthiness? But reasonable people can disagree about the long-term value potential of a company's ESG—which factors are relevant (will companies suffer financially from producing electromagnetic radiation?), how to assess them (how inclusive is a company's corporate culture?), and the relative weight to put on each. An ESG rating isn't fact; it's opinion.

Credit ratings aren't a good analogy as there is no ambiguity on what they're trying to measure—whether a company will repay its debt. There might be different views on how to assess it, but the object of the assessment is clear. For ESG, it's not even clear which factors should be measured to begin with. The better analogy is to equity research reports, which also try to measure long-term value.4 No one would argue that stock analysts can't do their job because Goldman Sachs says “Buy” and Morgan Stanley recommends “Sell.” Indeed, another word for disagreement is “diversity,” ironically something ESG advocates should embrace rather than lament. A diversity of opinion is far more informative than if everyone said the same thing. The main complaints are from ESG-by-numbers investors who want a single unambiguous ESG rating they can use for portfolio selection. But a mainstream investor would never automatically buy just because Goldman Sachs says so; she'd read the reports of different brokers, use her expertise to evaluate whose arguments are most convincing, and supplement them with her own analysis.

将 ESG 视为一组长期价值驱动因素，也有助于缓解围绕它的许多争议。其中之一是 ESG 评级机构之间的显著分歧（Berg 等，2022）。批评者将其解读为评级机构失职的证据——为什么他们不能像 S&P、穆迪和惠誉那样就公司的 ESG 达成一致？但理性的人们可能对公司 ESG 的长期价值潜力存在分歧——哪些因素是相关的（公司会因为生产电磁辐射而遭受财务损失吗？），如何评估它们（公司的企业文化包容性如何？），以及每个因素的相对权重。ESG 评级不是事实，而是观点。

信用评级并不是一个好的类比，因为它们试图衡量的内容没有歧义——公司是否会偿还债务。可能会有不同的评估方法，但评估对象是明确的。对于 ESG，甚至不清楚应该衡量哪些因素。更好的类比是股票研究报告，这些报告也试图衡量长期价值。没有人会认为股票分析师不能胜任工作，因为高盛说“买入”而摩根士丹利推荐“卖出”。实际上，分歧的另一个词是“多样性”，具有讽刺意味的是，ESG 倡导者应该拥抱而不是抱怨这种情况。意见的多样性比所有人都说同样的话更具信息性。主要抱怨来自那些希望使用单一明确 ESG 评级进行投资组合选择的投资者。但一个主流投资者永远不会仅仅因为高盛说了就自动买入；她会阅读不同经纪人的报告，利用她的专业知识评估谁的论点最有说服力，并补充自己的分析。

4.2 ESG classifications / ESG 分类

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many investors considered defense companies as “non-ESG.” Afterward, many did a hasty U-turn, rewriting their investment policies to redefine defense as ESG. A Financial Times article—“Are Defence Stocks Now ESG?”—describes this binary thinking. The less black-and-white we make our classifications, the less inflexible they'll be, and the less back-tracking we'll need to make if the world changes.

It makes even less sense to classify stocks as ESG or non-ESG when we view them through the long-term value lens. Some companies might have more value-creation potential than others, but it's a continuum, not a binary classification. Moreover, thinking of ESG as intangible assets reduces the temptation to see it in such a binary way. The value of any asset must be compared to its price. Yet many ESG advocates would give three cheers to environmentally friendly, diverse companies that donate generously to charity without any regard for its price, which can lead to ESG bubbles (as we've seen with electric cars).

在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰之前，许多投资者认为国防公司是“非 ESG”。之后，许多人急忙转变，重新定义国防为 ESG。金融时报的一篇文章——“国防股票现在是 ESG 吗？”——描述了这种二元思维。我们越少将分类做成黑白分明的，它们就越不僵化，世界变化时我们需要的倒退也越少。

当我们从长期价值的角度看待它们时，将股票分类为 ESG 或非 ESG 变得更加没有意义。有些公司可能比其他公司有更多的价值创造潜力，但这是一个连续体，而不是二元分类。此外，将 ESG 视为无形资产减少了将其视为二元的诱惑。任何资产的价值都必须与其价格进行比较。然而，许多 ESG 倡导者会毫不顾及其价格地为环保、多样化的公司欢呼，这可能导致 ESG 泡沫（正如我们在电动车上看到的那样）。

Some ESG factors may be best thought of as risks rather than assets. However, risks must also be compared against their price. A common phrase is “climate risk is investment risk,” and used to imply that investors are imprudent (from a purely financial perspective) if they don't completely decarbonize their portfolio. But if climate risk is priced in, as found by Bolton and Kacperczyk (2021), then investors earn a return for bearing that risk. Holding stakes in young firms, tech companies, and emerging markets bears investment risk, but that risk is compensated for by a return. If an asset manager wanted to avoid investment risk, it would ironically eschew clean energy and carbon capture. Even if ESG risks aren't fully priced in, they shouldn't lead to an investor automatically excluding an ESG laggard; it may remain a good investment if it has other valuable and unpriced intangible assets.

In 2021, Nasdaq aimed to prohibit firms without sufficient board diversity from listing on the market, claiming this would protect investors. The evidence for the value of board diversity is mixed or negative (Fried, 2021), but even if it were unambiguously positive, regulation wouldn't be needed to protect investors as nondiverse firms would trade at a discount. Even if they didn't, there'd be no more reason to regulate diversity than any other less-than-fully-priced drivers of value. It's not clear why a company with a diverse board but poor capital allocation, strategy, and innovation should be deemed investible but one with the opposite characteristics should not.5

Similarly, classifications into ESG and non-ESG buckets are typically based on current status rather than future potential. This highlights another problem with the metric-driven approach: metrics only capture what is happened in the past. Any analysis of long-term value would focus on a company's future potential; certainly, historic data are useful, but only to the extent it helps you forecast future cash flows. If ESG were viewed through the long-term value lens, assessments might not be so backward looking. Naturally, different investors (or rating agencies) may have different opinions about future performance, but this diversity is to be embraced rather than lambasted as inconsistent.

一些 ESG 因素可能最好被视为风险而不是资产。然而，风险也必须与其价格进行比较。一个常见的说法是“气候风险就是投资风险”，用来暗示如果投资者不完全实现投资组合的脱碳，他们就是不谨慎的（仅从财务角度）。但如果气候风险已经被计入价格（如 Bolton 和 Kacperczyk 所发现的，2021），那么投资者就会因为承担这种风险而获得回报。持有年轻公司、科技公司和新兴市场的股份具有投资风险，但这种风险会得到回报。如果一个资产管理人想要避免投资风险，那么讽刺的是，它会避开清洁能源和碳捕获。即使 ESG 风险没有完全计入价格，它们也不应导致投资者自动排除 ESG 落后者；如果它有其他有价值且未定价的无形资产，它可能仍然是一个好的投资。

2021 年，纳斯达克试图禁止没有足够董事会多样性的公司上市，声称这会保护投资者。董事会多样性价值的证据是混合的或负面的（Fried，2021），但即使它是明确的正面，不需要通过法规来保护投资者，因为非多样性的公司会以折扣价交易。即使没有，也没有理由像对待其他未完全定价的价值驱动因素那样来对待多样性。不清楚为什么一个拥有多样性董事会但资本配置、战略和创新较差的公司应该被认为是可投资的，而相反特征的公司则不应被认为是可投资的。

同样，将公司分类为 ESG 和非 ESG 通常基于当前状态而非未来潜力。这凸显了基于指标方法的另一个问题：指标只捕捉过去发生的事情。任何长期价值的分析都会关注公司的未来潜力；当然，历史数据是有用的，但仅在它有助于你预测未来现金流的情况下。如果从长期价值的角度看待 ESG，评估可能不会如此向后看。自然，不同的投资者（或评级机构）可能对未来表现有不同的看法，但这种多样性应该被拥抱，而不是被批评为不一致。

4.3 The politicization of ESG / ESG 政治化

Recognizing that ESG is no more or less than a set of long-term value drivers will hopefully defuse the worrying politicization of ESG. ESG critics label its advocates as the woke Left; devotees accuse anyone who questions the value relevance of ESG as being a conservative corrupted by lobbyists. Reasonable people can disagree about how relevant a factor is for both financial and social returns, but views on ESG often move beyond opinion to ideology.

A senior ESG practitioner who teaches at a top university messaged me “Hiya Alex. You want to fight?! Me and Aswath Damodaran about to get in boxing match about his ESG takedown piece. Please consider co-writing a counterpoint op-ed with me?” But my initial instinct was not to fight; if someone dubbed the “Dean of Valuation” has a differing view on the relevance of ESG for valuation, I'd like to learn from it. A Managing Director at a large investment bank wrote to me: “See The Economist Special report on ESG this w/e—why do you think these papers give anti-ESG rhetoric oxygen? … They fan flames of the deniers.” Yet those who recognize that ESG has cons as well as pros aren't necessarily driven by rhetoric; instead, they're able to see both sides of an issue. Most people aren't “believers” or “deniers”—language that focuses on ideology—but academics or practitioners who've developed their own view through a combination of evidence and experience.

认识到 ESG 只不过是一组长期价值驱动因素，应该有助于缓解围绕 ESG 的令人担忧的政治化现象。ESG 的批评者将其支持者贴上觉醒左派的标签；而拥护者则指责任何质疑 ESG 价值相关性的人是被游说者腐蚀的保守派。理性的人们可以就某个因素对财务和社会回报的相关性产生分歧，但对 ESG 的看法往往超越了观点而成为意识形态。

一位在顶尖大学任教的高级 ESG 从业者发信息给我说：“你好，Alex。你想辩论吗？！我和 Aswath Damodaran 要开始一场关于他那篇 ESG 批评文章的对垒。请考虑与我共同撰写一篇反驳的评论文章？”但我的初步反应并不是打架；如果一个被誉为“估值之王”的人对 ESG 在估值中的相关性有不同看法，我想从中学习。一位大投资银行的常务董事写信给我：“看看本周末《经济学人》的 ESG 专题报告——你为什么认为这些文章会给反 ESG 言论提供氧气？……他们在助长否认者的火焰。”然而，那些认识到 ESG 既有优点也有缺点的人并不一定被言论驱动；相反，他们能够看到问题的两面。大多数人不是“信徒”或“否认者”——这是关注意识形态的语言——而是通过证据和经验的结合发展出自己观点的学者或从业者。

It's unprofessional for ESG critics to label its supporters as “woke,” or portray them as hippies with no clue about business—in contrast, understanding ESG is critical to understand the value of a business. Some ESG skeptics pat themselves on the back for crushing the woke crowd, when they should view their contribution as providing a different perspective on what creates long-term value. But respondents don't need to stoop to their level. One practitioner, whom I'll name Hugo, labeled concerns as “just complete BS” that spread “nonsense around ESG.” A professor whom I greatly respect and whose writings I've learned a lot from called skeptics “Taliban” and “Flat Earthers”; he titled a separate article “A Tutorial On ESG Investing In The Oil And Gas Industry For Mr. Pence And His Friends.” In addition to slighting the target audience, suggesting they needed a tutorial but others don't, it politicized the issue, implying that true conservatives should be anti-ESG, thus reducing the article's effectiveness. Research by the Yale Cultural Cognition Project (e.g., Kahan, 2015) finds that the more you associate an issue with an identity (such as climate change with political affiliation), the less persuasive your arguments are, as people base their view on their identity than your content. Another practitioner wrote “Thank heavens for this excellent piece from Hugo, who tells it like it is: “I don't know about you, but when I see the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Greg Abbott, Mike Pence, and Elon Musk railing against ‘ESG’, I know ESG must be doing something right.” ” But “telling it like it is” involves using arguments based on facts, data, and evidence, not telling other people off. The criterion for the success of ESG is whether it creates long-term value for shareholders and society, not whether it riles conservatives. (The piece by Hugo was called “Why the Right Hates ESG” and the strapline began with “It's all about them wanting to protect the fossil-fuel industry.” Instead, skeptics may simply have healthy doubts, rather than hatred, and have reached their stance after considering both sides of the issue, rather than being oil and gas lobbyists.)

对 ESG 批评者来说，把其支持者贴上“觉醒”的标签或将他们描绘成对商业一无所知的嬉皮士是不专业的——相反，理解 ESG 对理解企业价值至关重要。一些 ESG 怀疑论者自鸣得意地认为自己打败了觉醒人群，而他们应该将自己的贡献视为提供了一个关于创造长期价值的不同视角。但回应者不需要降低到他们的水平。一位从业者，我称他为 Hugo，称这些担忧为“完全是胡说八道”，在 ESG 周围传播“无稽之谈”。一位我非常尊敬并从其著作中学到很多的教授称怀疑者为“塔利班”和“扁平地球人”；他为另一篇文章起的标题是“给彭斯先生及其朋友的石油和天然气行业 ESG 投资教程”。除了轻视目标受众，暗示他们需要教程而其他人不需要外，这还将问题政治化，暗示真正的保守派应该反对 ESG，从而降低了文章的有效性。耶鲁文化认知项目的研究（例如，Kahan，2015）发现，越是将问题与身份联系起来（例如将气候变化与政治派别联系起来），你的论点就越没有说服力，因为人们会根据自己的身份而不是你的内容来形成观点。另一位从业者写道：“感谢上帝，有了 Hugo 这篇精彩的文章，他说出了事实：“我不知道你怎么想，但当我看到 Ted Cruz、Marco Rubio、Greg Abbott、Mike Pence 和 Elon Musk 这样的人成为‘ESG’的反对者时，我知道 ESG 一定做对了什么。”但“说出事实”涉及的是基于事实、数据和证据的论点，而不是批评别人。ESG 成功的标准是它是否为股东和社会创造长期价值，而不是它是否激怒了保守派。（Hugo 的文章名为《为什么右派讨厌 ESG》，副标题以“他们想保护化石燃料行业”开头。相反，怀疑论者可能只是有健康的怀疑，而不是仇恨，并在考虑了问题的两面后达成他们的立场，而不是被石油和天然气游说者所左右。）

Unfortunately, many ESG supporters herald as heroes those who display the most extreme outrage rather than use the most convincing evidence. If you view ESG as understanding what drives long-term value, you celebrate the people who contribute most to your understanding, by helping you see both sides of an issue. But if you view ESG as a political fight, you cheer the people who fight most aggressively. Another academic wrote an article that ended with “Climate risk is investment risk. There is no credible other side, only an ideological opposition cynically seeking a wedge issue for upcoming political campaigns… Which side are you on?” But ESG is not a debate on which you have to take a “side”—it's a subject, just like business is a subject; people's stance on a subject should evolve with the evidence rather than being anchored on a side. To be closed to the possibility of valid concerns is contrary to a culture of learning, and to assume people who voice concerns are “cynically seeking a wedge issue” is itself cynical. It's surprising that academics contribute to this polarization since they should appreciate the value of scientific enquiry and the importance of listening to different viewpoints. Indeed, there's an entirely credible other side—many people believe the core problem is that climate risk is not investment risk, because the absence of a global carbon tax means that companies can pollute with few consequences.

不幸的是，许多 ESG 支持者将那些表现出最极端愤怒的人视为英雄，而不是使用最有说服力的证据的人。如果你将 ESG 视为理解什么驱动长期价值，你会庆祝那些对你理解问题做出最大贡献的人，通过帮助你看到问题的两面。但如果你将 ESG 视为一场政治斗争，你会为那些最积极战斗的人欢呼。另一位学者写了一篇文章，结尾是：“气候风险就是投资风险。没有可信的另一面，只有一种意识形态反对，愤世嫉俗地寻求在即将到来的政治竞选中制造楔子问题……你站在哪一边？”但 ESG 不是一个需要选择“立场”的辩论——它是一个学科，就像商业是一个学科；人们对一个学科的立场应该随着证据而演变，而不是固定在某个立场上。拒绝可能存在的合理担忧与学习文化相悖，而假设提出担忧的人“愤世嫉俗地寻求楔子问题”本身就是愤世嫉俗的。令人惊讶的是，学者们也在助长这种极化，因为他们应该理解科学探究的价值以及听取不同观点的重要性。事实上，确实存在完全可信的另一面——许多人认为核心问题是气候风险不是投资风险，因为缺乏全球碳税意味着公司可以几乎没有后果地污染。

One justification of a streetfighter approach is that ESG issues are so important to society that we need to get them right. But topics such as unemployment, free trade, and government spending also have huge impacts on both people and planet; academics have punched hard, but not below the belt. Critical fields such as environmental economics, health economics, and economics of children have been around for decades, and advanced through reasoned debate rather than hyperbole and point-scoring. It's precisely that ESG is so important that we need to use the best evidence to guide us, which involves listening to other viewpoints—and doing so with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply. Doing so isn't betraying our ideals; as is commonly attributed to Aristotle, “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Even if 90% of what skeptics say is wrong, in our eyes, 10% might be right, and that 10% means we come away more informed than we were beforehand. But if ESG is a political issue, we see any counterargument as a threat to our identity, just like a different perspective on abortion or gun control. Both sides can do better.

街头斗士策略的一个理由是，ESG 问题对社会如此重要，我们需要正确处理它们。但失业、自由贸易和政府支出等话题对人类和地球也有巨大影响；学者们曾猛烈批评，但没有越过底线。关键领域如环境经济学、健康经济学和儿童经济学已经存在几十年，并通过理性辩论而非夸张和得分进展。正因为 ESG 如此重要，我们需要使用最佳证据来指导我们，这涉及听取其他观点——并以理解为目的，而不是回复为目的。这样做并不是背叛我们的理想；正如亚里士多德常被引用的那样，“有教养的人的标志是能够接受一个思想而不必接受它。”即使我们认为怀疑论者所说的 90% 是错误的，那 10% 可能是正确的，而那 10% 意味着我们比之前更有见识。但如果 ESG 是一个政治问题，我们会将任何反对论点视为对我们身份的威胁，就像对堕胎或枪支管制的不同看法一样。双方都可以做得更好。

5 IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH / 研究的启示

Viewing ESG through a long-term value lens has several implications for academic research. The first is to be more broad. The long-term value lens highlights how we can study issues because they create value, regardless of whether they fit into an ESG bucket—indeed, I stumbled into ESG by exploring whether investors can support companies’ pursuit of the long term, and whether intangible assets are priced by the market. Sometimes, intangible assets other than ESG may be more relevant for answering a particular question—for example, a company's responsiveness to a changing economic environment might depend on its human, organizational, or innovation capital more than its ESG. Similarly, a broader perspective might warn us that a certain research topic is less promising as it's already been addressed in a general context. Lots of ink has been spilled repeating widely documented results for the specific case of ESG. For example, it's well known that scandals worsen a CEO's reputation, so it's not too surprising that ESG scandals do too. If there's no clear reason why a result might not automatically extend to ESG, the contribution from explicitly extending it is relatively minor.

As we've discussed, a major reason for the rise in ESG is its impact on externalities, yet externalities aren't unique to ESG. Future research can similarly study the externalities created by companies and investors, even if their actions don't fall under the ESG umbrella. This may involve studying the impact of corporate decisions on other stakeholders (e.g., Bernile & Lyandres [2019], Cunningham et al. [2021], and Testoni [2022] for M&A) or the spillover effects of engagement from non-ESG investors (e.g., Agrawal & Tambe [2016], Bernstein & Sheen [2016], Cohn et al. [2021], and Fracassi et al. [2022] for private equity).

从长期价值的视角看待 ESG 对学术研究有几方面的启示。首先是需要更广泛的视角。长期价值的视角强调我们可以研究那些创造价值的问题，而不管它们是否适合 ESG 框架——事实上，我是在探索投资者是否可以支持企业追求长期目标以及无形资产是否被市场定价的过程中偶然发现了 ESG。有时，除 ESG 之外的无形资产可能更适合回答特定问题——例如，公司的应变能力可能更多地依赖于其人力、组织或创新资本，而不是 ESG。同样，更广泛的视角可能会警告我们某个研究主题前景不大，因为它已经在一般背景下得到了解决。大量文献重复记录了 ESG 的特定案例。例如，众所周知，丑闻会损害 CEO 的声誉，因此 ESG 丑闻也不会令人惊讶。如果没有明确的理由表明某个结果不能自动扩展到 ESG，那么明确扩展它的贡献相对较小。

如前所述，ESG 兴起的一个主要原因是其对外部性的影响，但外部性并非 ESG 所独有。未来的研究可以同样研究企业和投资者创造的外部性，即使他们的行为不属于 ESG 范畴。这可能涉及研究企业决策对其他利益相关者的影响（例如，Bernile & Lyandres [2019]，Cunningham et al. [2021]，Testoni [2022] 在并购中的研究）或非 ESG 投资者参与的溢出效应（例如，Agrawal & Tambe [2016]，Bernstein & Sheen [2016]，Cohn et al. [2021]，Fracassi et al. [2022] 在私募股权中的研究）。

The second is to be more granular. Sweeping questions such as “Does ESG work?” are unlikely to be fruitful. No scholar would write a paper entitled “Does investment pay off?” because it depends on what you're investing in; similarly, the value relevance of ESG depends on the type of ESG. ESG is an umbrella term, capturing many potentially contradictory factors. E and S is primarily about stakeholders, whereas G often ensures that managers act in shareholders’ interest (rather than their own). Closing a polluting plant is good for the environment, but bad for employees (an S factor). In Edmans (2011, 2012), I had to explain why I was studying employee satisfaction and not other ESG factors—because there's a strong theoretical motivation for its link to long-term returns. Similarly, future research could focus on the ESG dimensions most relevant for the research question being studied. Yet empiricists often use aggregate ESG scores, even if the question or identification strategy focuses on a specific issue. For example, a paper might study how a company's response to climate change news depends on its ESG rating. However, it may only be the E dimension that's relevant—and, within that E score, the components most relevant to climate change rather than other environmental factors such as noise pollution. Few reseachers would use aggregate ESG scores to measure governance, yet many do so to gauge environmental performance.

Granularity applies not only to the variables studied, but also to the implications claimed. A research paper should not have ESG in its title or abstract unless it pertains to all three ESG dimensions. For example, a theory model where investors have tastes for non-financial factors, which they trade-off against financial returns, could apply to environmental and social preferences. However, it's unlikely to apply to governance, as investors typically pursue governance for the exclusive objective of improving returns. Thus, it's a model of ES investing or SRI, rather than ESG investing.6

其次是需要更细化的研究。诸如“ESG 有效吗？”这样广泛的问题不太可能有成效。没有学者会写一篇题为“投资有回报吗？”的论文，因为这取决于你投资的是什么；同样，ESG 的价值相关性取决于 ESG 的类型。ESG 是一个总括性术语，涵盖了许多可能相互矛盾的因素。E 和 S 主要关于利益相关者，而 G 通常确保管理层为股东利益（而非自身利益）行事。关闭污染工厂对环境有利，但对员工（一个 S 因素）不利。在 Edmans (2011, 2012) 中，我不得不解释为什么我研究员工满意度而不是其他 ESG 因素——因为有强有力的理论动机表明它与长期回报有关。同样，未来的研究可以聚焦于与研究问题最相关的 ESG 维度。然而，实证研究人员通常使用综合 ESG 得分，即使问题或识别策略集中在特定问题上。例如，一篇论文可能研究公司对气候变化新闻的反应如何取决于其 ESG 评级。然而，可能只有 E 维度是相关的，而且在这个 E 得分中，与气候变化最相关的成分比其他环境因素（如噪音污染）更相关。很少有研究者会用综合 ESG 得分来衡量治理，但许多人用它来衡量环境表现。

细化不仅适用于研究的变量，也适用于所声称的影响。一篇研究论文不应在其标题或摘要中提到 ESG，除非它涉及所有三个 ESG 维度。例如，一个理论模型中投资者对非金融因素的偏好，他们在金融回报与这些偏好之间进行权衡，这可以应用于环境和社会偏好。然而，它不太可能应用于治理，因为投资者通常追求治理的唯一目标是提高回报。因此，这是一个 ES 投资或社会责任投资（SRI）模型，而不是 ESG 投资模型。

The third is to be more situational. While granularity is about focusing on specific ESG dimensions, situationality involves studying the contexts in which a relationship holds and, equally importantly, where it doesn't. An early attempt was Khan et al. (2016), who claimed that ESG factors are only linked to long-term returns if they are material for a company's industry. While Berchicci and King (2022) later showed that these results disappear under different modelling choices, Khan et al.’s hypothesis that the value of ESG is situation specific was worth testing. Edmans et al. (2022) document that employee satisfaction is positively associated with long-term stock returns in countries with flexible labor markets, but not those with rigid labor markets, potentially because regulations already ensure a minimum standard for worker welfare.

Moreover, if ESG is like any other asset, then companies may overinvest in it—Servaes and Tamayo (2017) use “social capital” to describe some dimensions of ESG, and the return on any form of capital can be below its cost. Thus, the value created by ES may depend on G—Krüger (2015) finds that the market responds negatively to positive ES events that are likely to result from agency problems. Similarly, research can relate governance to ES practices, without ascertaining whether they are positive or negative for firm value. For example, Cronqvist et al. (2009) find that entrenched CEOs pay higher wages.

第三是需要更情境化。虽然细化关注特定的 ESG 维度，但情境化涉及研究关系存在的背景，以及同样重要的，它不存在的背景。Khan 等人（2016）的一项早期尝试声称，只有在与公司行业相关的情况下，ESG 因素才与长期回报相关。尽管 Berchicci 和 King（2022）后来表明这些结果在不同建模选择下消失，但 Khan 等人的假设，即 ESG 的价值是情境特定的，值得测试。Edmans 等人（2022）记录了在劳动市场灵活的国家，员工满意度与长期股票回报正相关，而在劳动市场僵化的国家则不相关，可能因为法规已经确保了员工福利的最低标准。

此外，如果 ESG 像任何其他资产一样，那么公司可能会过度投资于它——Servaes 和 Tamayo（2017）用“社会资本”来描述某些 ESG 维度，而任何形式的资本的回报都可能低于其成本。因此，ES 的价值创造可能取决于 G——Krüger（2015）发现市场对可能由代理问题引发的正面 ES 事件反应消极。同样，研究可以将治理与 ES 实践联系起来，而无需确定它们对公司价值是正面的还是负面的。例如，Cronqvist 等人（2009）发现，根深蒂固的 CEO 支付更高的工资。

The fourth is to be less monotonic. Many papers use an ESG variable assuming that more is always better (even within the same context)—higher ESG scores, more frequent votes for ESG proposals, or tying pay to more ESG metrics. But, as discussed, companies can overinvest in ESG (Masulis & Reza, 2015), and investors might overly micromanage it (Gantchev & Giannetti, 2021). Moreover, in addition to U-shaped or hump-shaped results, insignificant results can significantly advance knowledge—as is commonly attributed to Thomas Edison, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” To help companies and investors focus on the drivers of long-term value, it's important to identify the factors that are unrelated to long-term value. However, under the ESG lens, we'd torture the data to squeeze out unambiguously positive or negative results, to attract the attention of ESG cheerleaders or naysayers.

第四是需要减少单调性。许多论文使用 ESG 变量，假设更多总是更好（即使在相同的背景下）——更高的 ESG 得分、更多次对 ESG 提案的投票，或将薪酬与更多的 ESG 指标挂钩。但如前所述，公司可能会过度投资于 ESG（Masulis & Reza，2015），投资者可能会过度微观管理它（Gantchev & Giannetti，2021）。此外，除了 U 形或驼峰形结果外，不显著的结果也能显著推进知识——正如常被归于托马斯·爱迪生的那句话，“我没有失败。我只是找到了 10,000 种行不通的方法。”为了帮助公司和投资者关注长期价值的驱动因素，重要的是识别那些与长期价值无关的因素。然而，在 ESG 视角下，我们会拷问数据以挤出明确的正面或负面结果，以吸引 ESG 支持者或反对者的注意。

The fifth is to be less quantitative. This, in turn, can lead to research in two directions. One is to gather qualitative ESG assessments, such as the Best Companies to Work For survey, just as qualitative analysis has been used for other indicators of long-run value (see Loughran & McDonald [2016] for a survey of the research on textual analysis). Given that some investors are adopting ESG-by-numbers approaches, qualitative factors are particularly likely to be mispriced by the market and thus associated with long-term returns. The other is to still use numerical data, but to pay attention to quality rather than just quantity. Using an example on intangible assets rather than ESG, Cohen et al. (2013) measure the quality of innovation based on the payoffs from past R&D expenditures. This quality-based measure significantly predicts future stock returns, while the mere quantity of R&D spending does not.

The final potential direction is to consider interactions between ESG and other drivers of long-term value. If putting ESG on a pedestal leads to companies paying less attention to these other factors (similar to Schoar's [2002] “new toy” effect when firms diversify away from their core business), then ESG might be a substitute for other intangible assets such as innovation. In contrast, if a focus on ESG encourages management to look beyond short-term earnings to long-term value more generally, then it may complement other intangibles.

第五是需要减少定量化。这反过来可以引导研究朝两个方向发展。一个是收集定性的 ESG 评估，例如“最佳工作公司”调查，就像定性分析已被用于其他长期价值指标一样（见 Loughran & McDonald [2016] 对文本分析研究的调查）。鉴于一些投资者采用数字化 ESG 方法，定性因素特别可能被市场低估，从而与长期回报相关。另一个是仍然使用数值数据，但关注质量而不仅仅是数量。举一个无形资产而非 ESG 的例子，Cohen 等人（2013）根据过去研发支出的回报衡量创新的质量。这种基于质量的指标显著预测未来的股票回报，而单纯的研发支出数量则不然。

最后一个潜在的方向是考虑 ESG 与其他长期价值驱动因素之间的相互作用。如果将 ESG 置于高处导致公司对其他这些因素关注较少（类似于 Schoar [2002] 的“新玩具”效应，当公司多元化离开其核心业务时），那么 ESG 可能是其他无形资产（如创新）的替代品。相反，如果对 ESG 的关注鼓励管理层超越短期收益而关注更广泛的长期价值，那么它可能会补充其他无形资产。

6 IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING / 教学的启示

Some business school rankings are now evaluating the ESG content of courses, for example, by asking core professors to report how many hours they dedicate to ESG. There are several problems with this practice, which parallel those for business.

First, it reinforces the impression that ESG is niche; courses need separate teaching hours tailored to ESG since the core material just isn't relevant. This is incorrect. As we've discussed, a basic principle of Finance 101 is that a company is worth the present value of all its cash flows. Thus, a carbon capture project or a wind farm can be analyzed by established finance techniques. Indeed, it can be justified by them—Finance 101 stresses how projects should be evaluated with NPV, taking into account all future cash flows, rather than the payback period or accounting rate of return, which focus on the short term. Another basic finance principle is that the relevant risk of a project is not its idiosyncratic risk, its risk in isolation, but systematic risk that is correlated with the rest of the economy. Climate solutions bear significant technological risk. But whether the technology fails or succeeds is unlikely to depend on the state of the economy; moreover, since these solutions are crucial for humanity, the need for clean energy should not be sensitive to whether we're in a boom or recession. Teaching these core finance principles really, really well may encourage the future leaders of this world to invest in ESG more than dedicated ESG content would.

一些商学院排名现在开始评估课程中的 ESG 内容，例如，询问核心教授他们在 ESG 上花了多少小时。这种做法存在几个问题，与企业的问题类似。

首先，这强化了 ESG 是小众的印象；课程需要专门的 ESG 教学时间，因为核心材料不相关。这是不正确的。正如我们所讨论的，金融学 101 的一个基本原则是公司的价值是其所有现金流的现值。因此，一个碳捕获项目或风力发电场可以通过既定的金融技术进行分析。实际上，它可以通过这些技术得到证实——金融学 101 强调项目应通过净现值（NPV）进行评估，考虑到所有未来现金流，而不是短期回报期或会计回报率。另一个基本的金融原则是，项目的相关风险不是其特有风险，而是与整个经济相关的系统性风险。气候解决方案承受显著的技术风险，但技术是否失败或成功不太可能取决于经济状况；而且，由于这些解决方案对人类至关重要，对清洁能源的需求不应受到经济繁荣或衰退的影响。非常好地教授这些核心金融原则可能比专门的 ESG 内容更能鼓励未来的世界领导人投资 ESG。

Certainly, there's a huge wealth of ESG-specific material that won't be covered in the standard core, such as ESG regulations and data sources. But such material may be better suited for electives. Particularly in a core class, carving out specific ESG material may backfire. It gives the impression that the core business principles, which have been researched and taught for decades, don't apply to ESG, and so an executive or investor who wants to prioritize ESG has to swing in the wind. It also suggests that ESG is a separate topic from creating long-term value, and so it's only relevant for students who want ESG jobs.

A second concern is that the ranking inputs are entirely self-reported, and thus prone to greenwashing. A finance professor could teach how to calculate NPV of a car factory. Simply by adding a single word, so that it now becomes the NPV of an electric car factory, without changing any of the cash flows, he can now claim he's teaching ESG. Or he can change the name of a protagonist in a case study to minority and count this as diversity and thus “S” content. Such a superficial way to evaluate courses will allow schools to move up the rankings through window-dressing, rather than actually improving the content of their courses.

当然，有大量特定于 ESG 的材料不会在标准核心课程中涵盖，例如 ESG 规定和数据来源。但这些材料可能更适合选修课。特别是在核心课程中，划分特定的 ESG 材料可能适得其反。它给人的印象是，已经研究和教授了几十年的核心商业原则不适用于 ESG，因此想要优先考虑 ESG 的执行官或投资者不得不自行摸索。这也表明 ESG 是与创造长期价值分开的主题，因此只有想要从事 ESG 工作的学生才需要关注。

第二个担忧是，排名输入完全是自我报告的，因此容易出现绿色清洗。一个金融教授可以教授如何计算汽车工厂的净现值。只需添加一个词，使其现在变为电动车工厂的净现值，而不改变任何现金流，他就可以声称他在教授 ESG。或者他可以将案例研究中的主人公改名为少数族裔，并将其计入多样性，因此属于“社会”内容。这样一种表面的课程评估方式会让学校通过窗饰提升排名，而不是实际改进课程内容。

Third, rankings are entirely right to scrutinize the quality of business school teaching. But to adapt a phrase from earlier, as a society we want great teaching, not just professors who teach ESG. There are far more critical ways to improve teaching than adding more ESG content (see Edmans, 2022). Most business schools put very little weight on teaching in tenure evaluations; some even put a negative weight, at least implicitly, by assuming that if you're winning teaching awards you can't be serious about research. Teaching ratings predominantly reward entertainment and popularity rather than challenging and stretching students. They're also given straight after the course, rather than at the end of the degree that would allow students to evaluate whether core classes provided a good foundation for the electives, job interviews, and internships—indeed, one of the core principles of ESG is the importance of long-term outcomes. There are no ratings for whether your teaching is based on rigorous academic research; whether it uses current, real-life examples; and whether it's practical rather than just theoretical. If you teach the CAPM, you best create social value by teaching the CAPM really, really well—explaining where to get the inputs in the real world, when they're not handed to you in a homework problem; discussing what to do when the CAPM assumptions don't apply, such as investors being undiversified; and explaining how to make decisions when the CAPM predictions don't hold, such as the market being overvalued or undervalued.

第三，排名完全有权审查商学院教学的质量。但借用前面的一个短语，作为一个社会，我们需要的是优秀的教学，而不仅仅是教授 ESG 的教授。有很多比增加更多 ESG 内容更重要的方法来改进教学（见 Edmans，2022）。大多数商学院在终身教职评估中对教学的权重很小；有些甚至隐含地认为，如果你赢得了教学奖，你就不可能认真对待研究。教学评分主要奖励娱乐性和受欢迎程度，而不是挑战和拉伸学生。评分通常是在课程结束后立即给出的，而不是在学位结束时，让学生评价核心课程是否为选修课、求职面试和实习提供了良好的基础——事实上，ESG 的一个核心原则是长期结果的重要性。没有评分评估你的教学是否基于严格的学术研究；是否使用当前的、真实的例子；以及是否是实用的而不仅仅是理论的。如果你教授资本资产定价模型（CAPM），你最好的创造社会价值的方法是非常好地教授 CAPM——解释如何在现实世界中获得输入，当它们不是家庭作业问题中给出的；讨论当 CAPM 假设不适用时该怎么办，例如投资者未多元化；以及解释当 CAPM 预测不成立时如何做决策，例如市场被高估或低估。

Finally, rewarding core professors for teaching ESG disrespects the topic, by suggesting that anyone can teach it, regardless of expertise. One business school ranking has added the question “How many of your core teaching hours contain climate solutions for how organizations can reach net zero?” Net zero is indeed important, but it's so important that it shouldn't be taught by a professor who reads Wikipedia for an hour to create a couple of new slides. How to reach net zero is extremely complex and many solutions are technological ones that should be taught by climate scientists or engineers. There are certainly finance-related elements, but challenges such as the difficulty in even measuring “net” or “zero,” the potential conflict between net zero and asset manager fiduciary duty (see Gosling & MacNeil, 2022), and the trade-off between net zero and other ESG issues, such as mass unemployment of energy sector workers, many of whom can't easily be retrained, require expertise. Schumacher (2020) coined the term "competence greenwashing" to describe non-experts claiming to be authorities on ESG; this can apply both to professors teaching ESG material with limited knowledge of ESG research and practice, or practitioners highlighting their ESG certificates (sometimes awarded for courses taught by such professors). Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and FinTech are also very important topics for the future, and thus could be considered core, but not all core professors should teach them.

Moreover, for the ESG issues that are finance related, finance expertise is needed to teach them correctly. The professor who claimed that “Climate risk is investment risk. There is no credible other side” is a leading expert in other business fields, but has not published any papers in finance. As discussed earlier, Finance 101 tells us that risks are rewarded, so there's no financial reason to avoid emitting companies. Extremism and refusal to consider other viewpoints are sometimes used to compensate for lack of expertise.

最后，奖励核心教授教授 ESG 是对这一主题的不尊重，因为这暗示任何人都可以教授它，而不论其专业知识。一个商学院排名增加了一个问题：“你有多少核心教学时间包含了组织实现净零的方法？”净零确实很重要，但它如此重要，以至于不应该由一个阅读了一个小时维基百科以创建几张新幻灯片的教授来教授。实现净零的方法非常复杂，许多解决方案是技术性的，应该由气候科学家或工程师教授。当然，有与金融相关的元素，但诸如甚至测量“净”或“零”的困难、净零与资产管理人受托责任之间的潜在冲突（见 Gosling & MacNeil，2022），以及净零与其他 ESG 问题之间的权衡，如能源部门工人大量失业，其中许多人不能轻易再培训，这些都需要专业知识。Schumacher（2020）创造了“能力绿色清洗”这个术语，描述非专家声称自己是 ESG 权威；这可以适用于教授 ESG 材料而对 ESG 研究和实践了解有限的教授，或突出其 ESG 证书的从业者（有时是由这样的教授教授的课程颁发的证书）。人工智能、机器学习和金融科技也是未来非常重要的主题，因此可以被认为是核心课程，但并非所有核心教授都应该教授它们。

此外，对于与金融相关的 ESG 问题，需要金融专业知识才能正确教授它们。那位声称“气候风险是投资风险。没有可信的其他方面”的教授在其他商业领域是顶尖专家，但没有发表任何金融论文。如前所述，金融学 101 告诉我们，风险是有回报的，因此没有财务理由避免排放公司。极端主义和拒绝考虑其他观点有时被用来弥补缺乏专业知识的不足。

7 CONCLUSIONS / 一些结论

ESG is both extremely important and nothing special. It's extremely important since it affects a company's long-term shareholder value, and thus is relevant to all academics and practitioners, not just those with ESG in their research interests or job title. It also affects a company's impact on wider society. This is relevant for anyone who cares about more than just financial returns, as well as for ensuring that capitalism works for all and safeguarding the public's trust in business.

But ESG is also nothing special. It shouldn't be put on a pedestal compared to other intangible assets that affect both financial and social value, such as management quality, corporate culture, and innovative capability. Like other intangibles, ESG mustn't be reduced to a set of numbers, and companies needn't be forced to report on matters that aren't value relevant. Funds that use ESG factors to guide stock selection and engagement shouldn't be lauded over those who study other value drivers, and investors in the latter deserve the same protection. We can embrace differences of opinion about a company's ESG performance just as we do about its management quality, strategic direction, or human capital management. And, perhaps most importantly, ESG needn't be politicized. Aggression and hyperbole are signs of weakness, not strength; as Karl Popper noted, “Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.” Instead, reasonable people can disagree with each other about the factors that create value for both shareholders and stakeholders. More than that, they can learn from each other, thus enriching our knowledge on some of the biggest challenges facing business and society today.

ESG 既极其重要，又并非特别。它极其重要，因为它影响公司的长期股东价值，因此对所有学术界和从业者都相关，而不仅仅是那些研究兴趣或职位中涉及 ESG 的人。它还影响公司对更广泛社会的影响。这对任何关心不仅仅是财务回报的人都相关，同时也关系到确保资本主义对所有人都有效，并维护公众对商业的信任。

但 ESG 也并非特别。它不应被置于一个相对于其他影响财务和社会价值的无形资产的高台上，例如管理质量、公司文化和创新能力。像其他无形资产一样，ESG 不应仅被简化为一组数字，公司也不必被迫报告那些不相关的事项。使用 ESG 因素来指导股票选择和互动的基金不应被过度称赞，而那些研究其他价值驱动因素的基金也应得到相同的保护。我们可以接受关于公司 ESG 表现的意见分歧，就像我们接受关于其管理质量、战略方向或人力资本管理的意见分歧一样。而且，也许最重要的是，ESG 不应被政治化。攻击性和夸张是弱点的标志，而非力量；正如卡尔·波普尔所言：“每当一个理论似乎是你唯一可能接受的理论时，这表明你既没有理解这个理论，也没有理解它试图解决的问题。”相反，理性的人可以就创造股东和利益相关者价值的因素彼此不同的看法。更重要的是，他们可以互相学习，从而丰富我们对当今商业和社会面临的一些重大挑战的认识。

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / 致谢

This article is based on my plenary talk at the Accountability in a Sustainable World conference. I thank an anonymous referee, the Editors (Shawn Thomas and Kathy Kahle), Tom Gosling, Ken Pucker, Christina Skinner, and seminar participants at the Investor Forum for helpful comments.

这篇文章基于我在《可持续世界中的问责制》会议上的 plenary 讲座。我感谢匿名审稿人、编辑（Shawn Thomas 和 Kathy Kahle）、Tom Gosling、Ken Pucker、Christina Skinner 以及 Investor Forum 研讨会的参与者提供的宝贵意见。