Measuring the impact of business: Sustainability Reporting by Corporations in Emerging Asia

Sta. Romana, Leonardo L. (2018): Measuring the impact of business: Sustainability Reporting by Corporations in Emerging Asia.

Abstract

This study addresses the issue of sustainability reporting by corporations, and the framework(s) and guidelines used in the preparation of those annual reports.

It takes as its starting point the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12: “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”, with its Target 12.6: “Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle”. And it is the Indicator 12.6.1: “Number of companies publishing sustainability reports” that provides the inspiration for the idea for doing this study.

The study provides, firstly, a brief background on the group responsible for the sustainability reporting framework widely used by companies, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). This is followed with another short background on a second, though newer, group with another framework, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).

The study presents - to the best of the author's knowledge - the first comparative study of corporate sustainability reports (and the frameworks used) across ten Emerging Asian economies.

It proceeds to this core empirical contribution of the paper by explaining the process how the corporations in Emerging Asia were selected for inclusion in the study. It notes that the companies and the economies of origin were not picked directly for inclusion.

The first step was to find reputable corporate sustainability rankings and ratings. Seven information sources yielded a list of 150 companies from ten Emerging Asian economies. These economies are: China, Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

It then presents the findings from a survey of the sustainability reports of the 150 corporations. Across the entire sample, almost 90 percent cite the use of the GRI guidelines. In three economies with more than just a handful of companies in the sample -- South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand -- all of their companies cite the GRI framework. However, the picture is not as one-sided in India, where less than half cite the GRI.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Environmental sustainability, Corporate social responsibility (CSR), Environmental economics, Sustainable development, Sustainable development goals (SDGs), Sustainability reporting, Environment and development, Emerging Asia, Environmental, social and governance (ESG), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), Integrated reporting, China, Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D62 - Externalities; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M2 - Business Economics; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O44 - Environment and Growth; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q56 - Environment and Development ; Environment and Trade ; Sustainability ; Environmental Accounts and Accounting ; Environmental Equity ; Population Growth

References

Channel NewsAsia (2016), Asia’s Top 100 Companies – Sustainability Ranking 2016, Singapore, with Sustainalytics.

Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (2017b), Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index, with RobecoSam.

Fogelberg, T. (2017), “15 Years before the European Medicine Agency, Amsterdam won the global HQ of GRI and became Europe's corporate sustainability centre”, Sustainability-Reports.com, 30th Nov.

MSCI Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Indexes (2018a), MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders Index (USD).

Sta. Romana, L. (2017), "Sustainable Consumption and Production in the Philippines", in Schroeder, P. et al. (eds.), Sustainable Asia: Supporting the Transition to Sustainable Consumption and Production in Asian Developing Countries, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore.

van der Molen, F. (2015), “Behind the 15 years of GRI sustainability reporting”, 2degrees blog, 1st Sep, https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/2degrees-community/resources/15-years-gri-sustainability-reporting/