China Daily reported that two-thirds of companies in China are only bystanders in corporate social responsibility (CSR). They don’t promote CSR and disclose insufficient information about it, according to the Corporate Social Responsibility Blue Book released on Nov 8 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
The report investigated the top 100 State-owned, private and foreign companies in China and scored them on a 100 points scale by comparing them to international CSR indices, the Domestic CSR Initiative and the CSR Evaluation Package of the World’s Top 500, reported the Beijing Morning Post.
It found out that the average score of all 300 companies is only 19.7, two points higher than last year, and that 205 of them are bystanders – both of which demonstrate that the overall level of CSR in China is still low.
Specifically, the top 100 foreign companies, whose average score was 12.5 and of whom 80 percent are bystanders, did the worst job. Though the top 100 State-owned companies performed best with an average score of 32.8, while half of them are bystanders, the development of their CSR policies are still in their infancy, according to the Beijing Times.
In total, 26 of the investigated companies – 19 of which are foreign companies, including big names such as Adidas and Coca-Cola – scored zero or even below zero.
CASS commented that Adidas, who scored the lowest with minus four points, had disclosed little information on its plans about CSR development, anti-commercial bribery, corporate environmental management, energy conservation, pollution control and emission reduction, according to the Beijing Morning Post.
Companies who didn’t disclose any information on CSR were scored zero, and if there was anything wrong with their CSR policies during the formulation of the report, they were scored below zero, according to the panel who compiled the Blue Book.
About CSR
When composing the Blue Book, CASS evaluated companies’ CSR from four dimensions – management, market, social and environmental responsibility.
Management responsibility refers to the company’s CSR development plan and anti-commercial bribery regulation.
Market responsibility examines the growth and the profitability of a company and the rate of its qualified products.
Social responsibility studies a company’s social security coverage as well as safety and health training.
Environmental responsibility investigates the company’s plans on environment management, energy conservation and emission reduction.
(Sourced from chinadaily.com.cn)
(Photo by INDIACSR)
