Corporate responsibility improves in China

China has in 2018 recorded an increase in fulfilled corporate social responsibility (CSR) work, a report has found.

The report further found that the transportation, storage, mining, information technology, and coal and water production industries show an overall high quality in the writing of their CSR reports.

Among more than 1,600 reports received by October, most reports focus on poverty alleviation, pollution prevention, climate change, and sustainable development, as well as accountability of overseas operations.

Of these reports, 11 percent are accompanied by English versions, according to the report released in December by the GoldenBee Corporate Social Responsibility Index.

Since 2009, China WTO Tribune, a monthly journal focusing on China's World Trade Organization-related work and established by the Ministry of Commerce, started to evaluate GoldenBee CSR reports.

The report found that State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have maintained a leading role in CSR practice, but the gap between private enterprises and SOEs in the quality of CSR reports and CSR fulfillment is narrowing.

State-owned enterprises released 909 reports, accounting for 58 percent of the total, while those released by listed Chinese companies accounted for 72 percent of the total, which is around 16 percentage points higher than last year.

"Companies listed in Hong Kong show a higher quality in the standard of their reports, partly due to the requirement of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange," said Yin Gefei, chief advisor of China WTO Tribune and chief expert of GoldenBee CSR Consulting.

"For writing CSR reports, we suggest that enterprises should further strengthen the disclosure of the management solutions of some core problems, and better respond to hot topics that the public cares about," he said.

He also added that more enterprises in China have established specific CSR departments, and more professional CSR talents have joined such work.

There are around 100 business schools in the country that provide CSR courses in their curriculums.