Corporate Social Responsibility Reports: A Study of the Paper Industry in China

At present, most studies only focus on environmental reporting in corporate annual reports. This paper attempts to conduct an analysis on social responsibility reports. Based on social responsibility reports in Chinese listed paper companies', the authors find out that the most important environmental performance indicators are not fully disclosed and those disclosed indicators are qualitative instead of quantitative. In addition, positive activities and indicators are more elaborated. All of these lead to the incomparability and difficulties in the evaluation of corporate environmental performance. Based on the benchmark of Japanese companies, Chinese enterprises should incorporate environmental information into their information management system and integrate better disclosure methods as well as performance indicators proposed by ISO and WBCSD other than GRI. Meanwhile, the regulatory authority should issue related guidelines and enhance assurance.