SV 99 refers to China’s 99 listed companies selected from CSI 300 constituents, and the Discovering “SV 99” in China project involves the launch of a ranking list of these companies along with an assessment report on their SV performance. In China, where thousands or tens of thousands of rankings are released every year, the SV 99 Ranking may seem to be a drop in the ocean. The publication of the Chinese edition of Discovering “SV 99” in China-A-share Listed Company SV Assessment Report (2017) on 15 December 2017, however, soon grabbed the headlines of over 100 major media outlets, such as Securities Times, Xinhua Net, CBN, Hexun.com, Financial Times and South China Morning Post; three weeks after the publication of its English edition in Geneva, a team of more than 40 fund managers and financial analysts from the global fund management company Fidelity International made a visit to Shenzhen to learn more about the SV 99 project; during the 73^rd United Nations General Assembly in September 2018, the China Alliance of Social Value Investment (CASVI), invited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was present at the meeting “How the Private Sector Can Align to the SDGs”, introducing to international delegates the philosophies and practices of SV 99.

How could this trivial endeavour arouse extensive interests? What is the rationale, vision and value of the SV 99 initiative?

As an initiative originated by civil society in China, the SV 99 strives to measure the total value of a target company based on its economic, social and environmental contributions by leveraging the SV Assessment Model. It aims to help advance sustainable development, and is guided by the UN SDGs2438648 and CDV2438649. As a result of 14-months of collective efforts by 68 experts from 42 institutions home and abroad in pro-bono capacity under the coordination of CASVI, the project has achieved “four world’s firsts”-the first SV assessment system (SV 99 Assessment Model); the first SV assessment of listed companies (SV 99 Ranking); the first SV stock index (SV 99 Index); and the first released SV performance credit rating of listed companies (published in the Wind Financial Terminal). Now, CASVI is working with leading fund management companies in China to launch actively managed funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

More importantly, statistics show that during the 24 months of market back-test and tracking from 23 November 2016 up to the date of this report, the SV 99 Index developed from the SV 99 Ranking outperformed mainstream A-Share indices, including SSE 50, CSI 300, CSI 800, Shanghai Composite Index, ChiNext Index and SCI, with a higher ROE than virtually all of its peers.

Is the SV assessment, along with its application products, simply a grasp at luck, or a “seed” of a vision blooming into reality? To better understand the SV 99 community, we need to first clarify the implications of SV and the structure of the assessment models.