The Roberts Environmental Center (REC) released a detailed analysis of the social responsibility reporting efforts of China's top corporations. The report contains a compilation of Pacific Sustainability Index scores evaluating the environmental and social reporting of the 29 Chinese companies on the 2009 Fortune Global 500 list. REC gave top marks to China Ocean Shipping, Lenovo, Baosteel, and Sinopec.
The Roberts Environmental Center invited the Beijing-based sustainability consulting firm, SynTao, to add its insights into the current state of Chinese sustainability reporting, and the report contains SynTao's informative synthesis.
"Chinese corporations are really just getting started in sustainability reporting." said Emil Morhardt, Roberts Professor of Environmental Biology at CMC and director of the Roberts Environmental Center, "But we expect them to be leaders within a few years."
The report scores companies based on the reporting, intent, and performance of environmental and social sustainability efforts. The research, based entirely on material released on the firms' Web sites, found that China Ocean Shipping and Lenovo, two of the smallest companies in the group, and Baosteel, only a little larger, had the best scores. The largest firm in China, Sinopec, came in fourth with the two other largest firms, China National Petroleum and State Grid coming in fifth and sixth. Only about ten companies had scores comparable to their European and American counterparts, with two-thirds of the group hardly reporting at all. All the lowest scoring firms were in the general size range of the three leaders, so clearly size is not the determining factor in doing the best job of describing details of companies' socially beneficial actions and environmental management.
To create the report's ranking, Morhardt and his team evaluated each company's Web site using the Pacific Sustainability Index including sector-specific questions. The index uses a general systematic questionnaire to analyze the quality of sustainability reporting. The selection of questions was based on the most frequently-mentioned topics in almost 1,800 corporate sustainability documents analyzed from 2002 through 2008 by the Roberts Environmental Center. The company's grades in this report were assigned on a grading curve, giving an A+ to the highest scoring companies and those with scores near it.
"In the current business climate, a demonstration of corporate social responsibility is more important than ever," continued Morhardt. "What we are analyzing is the quality of that demonstrationhow transparent the companies are with respect to their environmental and social issues, and how good a job they are doing resolving any problems they currently have and avoiding future ones."
The detailed analyses also reveal what social and environmental themes these companies perceive to be most important. The research screened Web site content to determine the most frequently reported topics. Companies with environmental achievements tended to tout their accountability and energy efficiency efforts while socially responsible businesses highlighted their superior policies and care for human rights.
Complete report.
Scoring Summary
Highest Overall Scores
China Ocean Shipping
Lenovo Group
Baosteel Group
Sinopec
Highest Environmental Reporting Scores
China Ocean Shipping
Sinopec
Baosteel Group
COFCO
Highest Social Reporting Scores
China Ocean Shipping
Lenovo Group
Baosteel Group
Sinopec
Lowest Overall Scores (all 0)
Bank of China
China Communications Construction
China Life Insurance
China Minmetals
China Metallurgical Group
China State Construction