Listed companies of TWSE are advised to maintain their sustainability reports based on the latest GRI G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for higher disclosure quality of non-financial information.
In conjunction with the publishing of the “Corporate Governance Roadmap 2013" by the Financial Supervisory Commission, listed companies of Taiwan Stock Exchange (“TWSE”) are advised to maintain their sustainability reports (or “corporate social responsibility reports”) based on the fourth version of Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (“GRI G4”) published by the Global Reporting Initiative (“GRI”) in order to improve the disclosure quality of non-financial information.
In recent years, corporate social responsibility has evolved from simply philanthropy to a deeper connection with corporate core value and operating strategy. A corporation, besides pursuing maximum profits, can disclose and announce its impact on economy, environment, and society through sustainability reports. Through the compilation process of the report, it can help corporation to set out goals, identify performance measures, and perform management reform. Finally, only by continuously focusing on CSR developments and preparing sustainability reports can make a corporation effectively control its future opportunities and risks.
GRI released its first version of Guidelines (“GRI G1”) in 2000 and, followed by G2, G3 and G3.1 updates, it has become the basis and framework of sustainability reporting around the globe. According to a recent survey, in 2013, 78% of the largest 100 companies of 41 counties and 82% of the top 250 global corporations prepared sustainability reports based on the GRI Guidelines. GRI released the GRI G4 Guidelines in May 2013 and the focus has been on the disclosure of "significant" issues. The GRI G4 enhances the report content to be more relevant, reliable, and user friendly for the stakeholders. As a result, GRI recommends the preparer who has been used G3 and G3.1 as guidelines to consider using GRI G4 as of or after December 31, 2015. First time preparer is recommended to apply GRI G4 directly.
In order to assist domestic companies to better understand the implications of GRI G4 guidelines and provide related parties to gain more accurate access to corporate sustainability information, GRI has authorized Business Council for Sustainable Development of Taiwan (“BCSD Taiwan”), accompanied by the review of TWSE, to translate the guidelines. In May 2014, BCSD Taiwan released GRI G4 Traditional Chinese Edition, which includes “Reporting Principles and Standard Disclosures” and the " Implementation Manual." TWSE has accessed the relevant documents and uploaded to http://www.twse.com.tw/ch/listed/manual.php for reference purpose.