Memo #26
Robert Hanlon
Last month over four hundred members of Asia’s business community converged on the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre for a four-day conference dedicated to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The CSR Asia Summit organized by Hong Kong-based CSR Asia has become one of the region’s most dynamic conferences, bringing together a wide range of corporate stakeholders. Based on this year’s theme, ‘Strategic Solutions for Sustainability,’ the Summit aimed to highlight the close relationship between the social, environmental, and economic risk factors of doing business in Asia.
The event also saw the release of the ‘Asian Sustainability Rating’, a benchmarking tool to assess the transparency of a company’s overall environmental, social, and governance reporting. Findings suggested that South Korean firms are leading the region while Chinese enterprises fall dead last. This comes as no surprise given the Mainland’s past record in corporate governance issues. But this is changing as many of China’s state-owned enterprises are scoring above average grades. The semi state-owned Lenovo Group took top marks in the ‘Social’ category.
The Summit and the Sustainability Rating are reflections of what has become a rapidly growing trend in Asia: the demand for socially responsible businesses. But key business issues, including corruption and human rights, continue to remain outside the CSR framework in Asia. The Summit program reveals limited interest for anything remotely perceived as political.
Three reasons explain why corruption and human rights are low on the CSR agenda. First, the vast majority of businesses in Asia see the issues as falling outside their sphere of influence and responsibility. Second, corruption and human rights are sidelined for less politically sensitive issues including the environment, education, and health. Finally, it is difficult for industry to determine the financial repercussions of not complying with global anti-corruption or human rights principles.
The secrecy behind corruption and human rights violations often obstructs internal investigations carried out by individual companies. On the other hand, real short-term financial gains for non-compliance may appease some level of corporate irresponsibility. Many industries have yet to understand how these issues can impact their bottom-line through negative publicity, legal and economic liability, and the overall privilege to operate. Thus, corruption and human rights will likely remain low priorities of the CSR Asia Summits.
About the Author:
Robert Hanlon is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Asian Research, The University of British Columbia. He teaches human security at Simon Fraser University and is an Associate Faculty member at Royal Roads University.
Links:
- Corruption and Human Rights: Making the Connection, International Council on Human Rights Policy, 2009.
- Lenovo Sustainability Reports, 2008/2009.
Related Memos:
- See Robert Hanlon’s other Memos, Canadian Mining and Human Rights in Asia: Building an Advantage or Dismantling Competitiveness? (Memo #16) & Hu Jintao’s Promise to Business: Can He Deliver? (Memo #53)
- Our other Memos about Asia, China, and South Korea