CUHK MBA Corporate Social Responsibility Conference – a Decade of Inspiration
The 10th annual CUHK MBA Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Conference was held on 20 May 2016. Since 2007, this conference has provided a platform to share and discuss best practices in CSR.
The 10th annual CUHK MBA Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Conference was held on 20 May 2016. Since 2007, this conference has provided a platform to share and discuss best practices in CSR to help inspire the future responsible business leaders of Asia.
The theme of this year’s conference was:
“Ten-years’ Responsible Business – CSR as Our DNA”
Businesses have been reporting their CSR performance for 15 years now and the practice is becoming more and more sophisticated. One of the conference highlights was the plenary panel discussion on CSR reporting, “From Communicating CSR to Value creation”. According to a study by EY, investors’ concerns of how businesses perform in non-financial aspects, such as environmental and social aspects, have been escalating.
The advances and importance of CSR was clearly demonstrated during the conference plenary panel. Ms. Ellie Pang, Vice President of Listing Division Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited outlined that all listed companies in Hong Kong are now required to provide an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, as part of the annual reporting cycle. According to HKEx policies and regulations (appendix 27):
Clause 8
“The board has overall responsibility for an issuer’s ESG strategy and reporting.”
Clause 10
“The ESG report should state the issuer’s ESG management approach, strategy, priorities and objectives and explain how they relate to its business. It would be useful to discuss the issuer’s management, measurement and monitoring system employed to implement its ESG strategy.”
During the same panel discussion, an international protocol for corporate reporting on CSR was outlined by Mr. Jonathan Labrey, Chief Strategy Officer International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) . Mr. Labrey is the Asia regional leader for the IIRC based in Singapore. He has built an understanding of the Asian markets and is creating and spreading global best practice in corporate reporting. The new protocol is called the Integrated Reporting Framework. This reporting framework encourages a wider range of units and departments within an organisation to have input towards corporate reporting. The integrated approach not only helps to produce a report which is more meaningful, it encourages these units and departments to take a greater level of ownership towards the planning and implementation of CSR activities.
These advances in global CSR reporting and compliance are helping companies to build a stronger CSR foundation and improve CSR performance. Companies are indeed evolving so that CSR is becoming a part of their DNA.
For more conference information, please visit:
https://www.facebook.com/CUMBA.CSR
