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Taiwan’s ESG Information Disclosure Leads Other Asian Countries

Publish time:2015-06-11

In the “Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Report Forum,” jointly hosted by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and Business Council for Sustainable Development of Taiwan (BCSD) on June 5th 2015, Eugene Chien, chairman of Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy (TAISE), stated that, according to Bloomberg statistics of May 2015, the average score of Taiwan’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) disclosure was 29 points, which is better than its neighboring markets including Korea (23 points), Japan (21 points), Hong Kong (19 points), China (19 points), and Singapore (19 points). This shows that Taiwan’s ESG disclosure is fairly comprehensive. The next step is to improve the quality and credibility of reports. When CSR (corporate social responsibility) reports have external assurance, it will not only increase the degree of trust that stakeholders have towards corporate information disclosure, but also enhance the ability of business operations and risk management to implement and provide opportunities to improve internal and external business sustainability management systems.
 
TWSE states that thanks to continuous promotion by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), the preparation of CSR reports by listed companies on TWSE or TPEx has gradually become a mainstream. Maaike Fleur, the Senior Strategy Advisor of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was invited to join this Forum to discuss the importance of external assurance and how to enhance the credibility of information disclosure with a community of experts in Taiwan.
 
Maaike Fleur pointed out that, based on the statistics from GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database as of the present time, 199 corporations in Taiwan published CSR reports in 2015, while 202 and 44 in China and Hong Kong, respectively.  Among them, approximately 30% of Taiwanese companies compiled their CSR reports according to the GRI G4 sustainability reporting guidelines. Of the Chinese and Hong Kong companies, 10% and 34% followed GRI G4, respectively. In the reports that declared the usage of GRI Guidelines, 50% of reports published by Taiwanese companies have obtained external assurance, while the ratio for Chinese companies and Hong Kong companies is at 40% and 70%, respectively. GRI will continue to collect various proposals regarding assurance on CSR reports and is committed to enhancing report credibility.
 
It is also worth mentioning that a special online survey was conducted for the guests present at the forum. Most respondents believed that the main purpose of third-party assurance was to enhance the credibility of sustainable information from an external perspective. Most respondents also believed that the professional level of the verification personnel is the top priority for companies when seeking providers of external assurance.