The 9th International Conference on CSR Reporting in China held in Shanghai

 

The conference was organized by China WTO Tribune and China Business Council for Sustainable Development and co-hosted by Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility of the Embassy of Sweden. Shanghai Daily, as the media partner, gave a full view of this conference. Participants had an in-depth discussion and analysis on a series of topics, including the latest trend of global CSR reporting, value exploration of CSR reporting, CSR information disclosure of Chines enterprises going broad, and CSR Reporting and mass communication in this conference. Meanwhile, GoldenBee Excellent CSR Report Honor Roll 2016 was also released.
Explore the new values of CSR communication
As what is called “starting with reports but not ending with reports”, in this conference, participants expressed their views on “Responsible Communication Creates Value” from different fields and perspectives.
Mr. Guo Xiuming, Associate Counsel, Department of Politics, Laws and Regulations, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that responsible manufacturing relies on communication. As the subject of responsible manufacturing, enterprises should carry out social responsibility practice actively to promote the sustainable development of enterprises and society, thus creating a sound policy atmosphere and development environment for corporate social responsibility promotion.   
Mr. Zhai Qi, Deputy Secretary General, China Business Council for Sustainable Development, pointed out that the year of 2016 is the first year to put the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into practice. The global social responsibility practice keeps carrying forward deeply and international society pays high attention to the sustainability. Stakeholders have a greater expectation to disclose social responsibility information.
Ms.Li Ling, Vice Chairman, China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment noted that how foreign-invested enterprises can be integrated into China’s development effectively and how they adapt to the new situation and changes have been the core issues.
Ms. Lotta Liljelund, Counsellor and Head，CSR Centre at the Embassy of Sweden in Beijing, shared the Swedish experience. She said that the Swedish government has proposed an ambitious CSR target, requiring around 1600 enterprises to submit corporate social responsibility reports.
Nowadays, any ambitious enterprise cannot be blind to the issues of social responsibility. The power for social responsibility fulfillment comes from the thoughts reform brought by social changes and the corporate values created by it. This conference also invited representatives from central state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises, multinational enterprises and private enterprises to share their insights on the approaches to responsible communication.
Disclose new trends of CSR reporting
In the conference, GoldenBee Research on Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in China 2016 showed the systematic assessment and analysis on 1328 CSR reports from 2,613 reports collected by the end of October 2016 and disclose the new trends of CSR reporting in 2016:
Finding 1：There is evidence to suggest that the quality of published CSR reports improved in 2016, with the comprehensive index showing an increase in quality of 30.30% against 2009 results. There was also a substantial increase in the number of quality reports being published, with 60.47% more reports achieving an above “good” rating.
Finding 2：To improve the materiality focus of their CSR reports, enterprises are emphasizing the management and standardization of the compilation process as well as the identification of stakeholders and issues.
Finding 3：The readability and innovativeness of reports has increased more than 40% year-on-year. The majority of enterprises now follow social trends and regularly optimize the structure and design of CSR reports to be more reader-friendly.
Finding 4：Enterprises continue to disclose CSR performance insufficiently, particularly as relates to cross-industry indicators. Enterprises must also enhance the comparability of CSR reports. SOEs and leading enterprises are better at disclosing information.
Finding 5: Reports continue to disclose sufficient information about employees, communities and government organizations. The disclosure of information on the environment, suppliers, counterparts and regulatory institutions continues to increase, and disclosures to counterparts and regulatory institutions is rising prominently.
Finding 6：The reports of leading enterprises and SOEs have steadily improved. 41.69% of leading reports have an “excellent” rating and 45.86% of SOEs reports have a “good” rating.
Finding 7：Reports released by companies listed on different stock exchanges show different levels of quality and disclose information differently and in different areas. Reports issued by the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) are relatively high quality due to outstanding innovation and greater attention to the disclosure of management information. Listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges (SSE/SZSE) emphasize the disclosure of responsible practices by shareholders.
Finding 8：Prominent industry features such as the structure of the CSR report, topic selection and design are improving. Power and real estate industry reports are of relatively high quality, with recent improvements to the quality of real estate industry reports being noteworthy.
Finding 9：Improvements to CSR management planning is needed. Some reports disclose qualified CSR management planning information, economic practices, and social and environmental responsibility but improvements to the disclosure of quantified data and information is still needed.
Finding 10：Reports are becoming more international. The number of reports compiled in accordance with international CSR standards and guidelines has increased significantly, and the number of English language reports is on the rise.
And the report also provided the following suggestions—
Suggestion 1：Leading enterprises must encourage companies to release CSR reports and improve report quality.
Suggestion 2：Emphasize performance information management and deepen the disclosure of vertical, industry-level and cross-industry comparable data.
Suggestion 3：Enhance interactions with stakeholders, support stakeholders to engage in the reporting process and improve the materiality of reports.
Suggestion 4：Deepen the disclosure of planned content, and disclose quantified planning information by referring to the strategic plan so as to tap into the value of the planning process.
Suggestion 5：Communication and mutual learning in CSR reporting between listed and unlisted companies, as well as between enterprises listed on the same and different stock exchanges should be promoted to improve the quality of CSR reports by listed companies.
Suggestion 6：Follow development trends and improve the global presence of reports.
In addition, the conference also introduced the new trends of CSR reporting in Europe and Africa, showing its professionalism and internationalization.
Display the new samples of excellent CSR reports
In order to discover more excellent CSR reports and encourage enterprises to publish more, China WTO Tribune has launched nation-wide activities to call for good CSR reports, conducted assessment and consecutively launched “GoldenBee Excellent CSR Report Honor Roll” for eight years since 2009. Until now, 8,657 reports and 258 enterprises have been listed on the honor roll.
In 2016, CSR reports from 68 enterprises emerged as the excellent CSR reports, and they were awarded the “Leading Enterprises” “Growing Enterprises” “Foreign-Invested and Hongkong, Macao and Taiwan-Invested Enterprises” and “Evergreen enterprises” respectively. This honor roll provides a professional platform to facilitate outstanding enterprises comprehensively display their CSR reports, and also offers reference for CSR reporting preparation, and using for reference. The increasing numbers of excellent CSR reports also signify that more and more enterprises join the team and are at the forefront of social responsibilities fulfillment.