Many firms ignore importance of corporate social responsibility
I refer to the commentary on Oxfam's corporate social responsibility survey in Lai See ('Charity begins at home', December 12). The purpose of this survey of Hang Seng Index constituent companies is to document their corporate social responsibility policies and practices.
Oxfam Hong Kong sees this as an initial effort to assess current corporate social responsibility initiatives and as a basis for further dialogue with companies on sustainable social and environmental development as well as poverty reduction.
We approached the survey with a recognition that the companies themselves are in the best position to provide information.
Questionnaires were thus sent by registered mail in May this year to the chairman or chairwoman of the company and also key contacts within the communications, corporate social responsibility or investor relations departments. Our researchers also followed up the companies to ensure that they were given the opportunity to respond. We even extended our initial deadline for responses.
For those companies that did not respond, information was collected from the public domain, namely 2007 annual and/or corporate social responsibility reports to complete the survey questions. Among the companies that did not respond, transparency then became a critical issue.
The scoring system inadvertently became a measure of transparency, in addition to evaluating corporate responsibility practices. It is possible that some of these companies do endorse such practices, but by not responding to the survey and not providing publicly available information, they did not allow us to provide them with actual ratings of their corporate responsibility records. Their scores become a reflection of their transparency.
This survey indicates that the majority of Hong Kong listed companies fail to adopt sound corporate social responsibility policies and practices, particularly in relation to monitoring supply chains, environmental protection and workplace conditions. We reiterate our call for companies to commit to a higher level of corporate responsibility, as well as disclosure.
Kalina Tsang, policy officer, Oxfam Hong Kong
