Commitment for Sustainable Development and Un Initiatives - Returns and Performance Shown
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Corporate Ownership & Control / Volume 15, Issue 1, Fall 2017 Continued - 2 COMMITMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND UN INITIATIVES - RETURNS AND PERFORMANCE SHOWN Shirley Yeung *, David Chui ** * Corresponding author, Director, College Development/ Head, School of Business, Gratia Christian College, HK Contact details: Room 301, 3rd Floor Gratian Christian College, 5, Wai Chi Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, HK ** Head of Department of Economics and Finance, Hang Seng Management College, HK Abstract How to cite this paper: Yeung, S., & The purpose of this paper is to reflect the commitment of Chui, D. (2017). Commitment for organizations in ESR reporting and explore ways to integrate ISO sustainable development and UN 26000 CSR Guidelines, ESG Reporting, and UN Sustainable initiatives - returns and performance shown. Corporate Ownership & Control, Development Goals for innovations in CSR performance, focusing 15(1-1), 360-369. participation of women in the workforce and CSR training http://doi.org/10.22495/cocv15i1c2p5 provided to employees. Based on quantitative ESG data* from Bloomberg database on the selected organizations’ qualitative Copyright © 2017 The Authors information of China and Germany that are signatory member of This work is licensed under the Creative UN Global Compact, it is observed that when comparing China and Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Germany, Germany in general has a higher ESG disclosure score, 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC higher level of women participation, and a longer ESG reporting 4.0). practice. In order to increase commitment of CSR and UN SDG, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by -nc/4.0/ complying with ESR reporting guidelines is not sufficient. It is suggested to integrate the 17 SD Goals of United Nations to empower women with decent jobs for economic and social ISSN Online: 1810-3057 impacts, to link up ISO 26000 CSR guidelines to inclusion. This ISSN Print: 1727-9232 research is managerially and strategically relevant and topical. Received: 10.05.2017 However, more practical innovations and sustainability-related Accepted: 12.07.2017 education and business practices from the social perspective are required not only to improve the ESR disclosure score and JEL Classification: O2, M14 economic impacts but also to generate a mindset of sustainability. DOI: 10.22495/cocv15i1c2p5 Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), Sustainability 1. INTRODUCTION customers, suppliers, organizations, and the community must be considered in strategic “Sustainability is a confusing concept that has planning, strategy implementation, performance evolved steadily over the last decades according to measurement and process review. Environmental Faber et al., 2005” (Bolis et al., 2014). In past years, considerations in the core and supporting processes there are different definitions of sustainability and may also definitely contribute to the sustainable sustainable development covering different business. th disciplines and perspectives of ecology, economics, During the 17 conference of UNESCO in sociology, biology, etc. Bolis et al. (2014) mentioned Teaching and Learning, 2014, though educators that “the concept of sustainability means many realized that the future teaching mindset and things to different people, and this diversity of pedagogy needed to be changed to match the needs meaning tends to increase.” According to the of the community, the issues were the definition of Brundtland Commission (1992) of the implementation of appropriate institutionalized United Nations, “sustainable development is a policy to increase the relevancy of continual development that meets the needs of the present professional development of scholars, teachers, without compromising the ability of future industry practitioners to understand the linkage generations to meet their own needs.” The basic between sustainability development and supply element of sustainability is the economic aspect to chain management in various kinds of industries. As a result, UNESCO, APEID co-organised with a tertiary support the business in the short term. For business st survival and expansion, issues relating to the institution in Hong Kong for the 1 forum in 360 Corporate Ownership & Control / Volume 15, Issue 1, Fall 2017 Continued - 2 Sustainability Development in Higher Education on human rights. It is the responsibility of 21st July, 2015 to cover Programme Design; Module organizations to consider the needs of the Assessment, and Learning Environments. stakeholders in these seven aspects when designing Besides, the study of Louw (2013) mentioned work processes or executing business-related that UNESCO called for educational sustainable activities. In fact, ISO standard 26000 conveys a development in the coming 10 years with the four message that non-economic inputs and soft side of main goals identified in relation to education, that outcomes are the trends of quality management is, rethinking and revising education from nursery system (QMS). school to university to include a clear focus of Building quality into products and services for current and future societies on the development of continuous improvement has been mentioned for knowledge, skills, perspectives, and values related to scholars in total quality management in the past. sustainability. In 2010, Ryan et al. uncovered that Today, people started to explore integrating CSR and many initiatives were offered in the Asia-Pacific sustainability related elements into organizational region about Education for Sustainable Development strategy for the sustainable business. Deep (2007) (ESD) to increase the understanding the different mentioned that there was a growing number dimensions of sustainability. They also highlighted proponent of the ‘stakeholder’ or ‘social that there was a global trend in requesting more responsibility’ model of corporate governance works on “promoting systemic change in educational holding that business was accountable to a broader arenas, particularly in terms of strategic integration populace who have a direct or indirect stake in the within HE institutions. The Asia-Pacific contributions enterprise’s activities. Although there is a lack of to this collection demonstrate the need to harness comprehensive evidence that CSR and sustainability national policy, to develop local and regional lead to improving financial performance, awareness initiatives and to work effectively towards more to environmental and social concerns from different profound change in HE curricula and through stakeholders is needed for the progress of collaboration with external communities and organizations. stakeholders.” United Nations Sustainable Development Goals From the above, more works are required to (UNSDGs) were endorsed by world leaders in close the gap between policy and practices on September 2015. The 17 UNSDGs, a continuation of education for sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, provides innovation for corporate competitiveness. In order a holistic framework for countries to promote good to fulfill the needs of UNESCO in improving the governance with peace for social impact, to protect understanding of SD and increase the innovative the land, water, air for environmental impact, and to capacity of organizations, it is time to explore the promote inclusive, equitable and lifelong quality sustainability and quality related literature and education for social, economic and environmental corporate performance in past years to identify the impacts. However, the applicability and feasibility of concerned areas for improvement to achieve 17 UNSDGs have become a hot topic recently. economic, social and environmental impacts. 3. UNITED NATIONS (UN) SUSTAINABILITY 2. FROM CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY RELATED INITIATIVES – UN GLOBAL COMPACT (CSR) TO UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE (UNGC) DEVELOPMENT GOALS (UNSDGS) This paper is prepared to arouse awareness of the The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidelines community, especially the social performance of of ISO 26000 highlight that a socially responsible corporations in business corporations about the organization needs to be aware of seven dimensions importance of social responsibility and in their operations of business: labor practices, sustainability from the perspectives of investors. consumer issues, fair operating practices, human The approach of sustainable development (SD) is not rights, organizational governance, community only focused on technology, but also on developing involvement and development and the environment. people with a mindset of sustainability in helping The priority of the seven dimensions is subject to the organization to achieve its vision/ mission via the strategic planning of the management and the implementing the 10 Principles of UN Global expectations of their stakeholders. For example, the Compact (see appendix). management of a banking organization may need to Mission and strategy are used to provide a understand the expectations of their customers meaningful and relevant direction to members of an when designing and launching different kinds of organization to move forward and to unleash the financial products and services, may need to identify potential for achieving the goals set by the not only their responsibility but also that of their management. According to Znidarsic and Jereb business partners in the supply chain, may need to (2011), innovation is the process of