The Symposium on the Social Role of Corporations in Asia-Pacific is a collection of essays in the USALI East-West Studies series that examine the state of corporate ESG in six Asia-Pacific jurisdictions.

ESG is the acronym for “environmental, social, and (corporate) governance,” the three top areas of concern of socially responsible investors. Climate change has become the most pressing issue in recent years, with investors increasingly asking corporations to disclose their climate change risk assessments and to reduce the carbon footprint of their business operations.

These essays document the growing attention being given to ESG in the Asia-Pacific region and analyze factors behind the increase, including the roles of international organizations, governments, institutional investors, and the public. Symposium editor Bruce Aronson writes in his introductory essay:

Broadly speaking, in the EU there has been a centralized, regulatory approach towards demanding ESG-related disclosures that is strongly backed by the public.  In the US (and the UK) the government has largely deferred to markets, as large institutional investors such as BlackRock have both stepped up pressure on corporations to increase ESG disclosure and have sold many ESG-focused investment funds.  Both approaches have resulted in remarkable increases in concern for ESG-related corporate policies and in ESG assets.  What might be the sources of effective pressures for change in Asia-Pacific countries—where businesses are generally less supportive of government regulation and where domestic institutional investors generally do not have the level of share ownership and influence they enjoy in the US and UK?

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This symposium is intended to provide new perspective and spur debate on the social role of corporations in Asia-Pacific, and how they may contribute to the pressing problem of addressing climate change.  It highlights promising areas for additional research and discussion on new, important issues facing Asia-Pacific and the world.

The symposium essays have been translated into Japanese and published by the Musashino Institute for Global Affairs. They can be downloaded here.

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Final Reflections

The essays in this symposium allow us to compare polices and practices in selected Asia-Pacific jurisdictions with respect to corporate ESG and especially climate change. Rapid regulatory changes have occurred just within the past few years. But so far such efforts do not seem to be having a significant impact on climate change problems.

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An Asian Solution for a Global Problem? Corporate Governance and the Environment in a Non-Anglo-American World

Historically, when it comes to determining what counts as “good” corporate governance globally, the United Kingdom and United States have set the rules of the game. This has resulted in ill-fitting Anglo-American corporate governance solutions being transplanted to Asia with unforeseen consequences.

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Nudging Technology Companies Toward Better ESG: A Commentary on Taiwan’s Voluntary Approach

The current “nudging” approach of Taiwan’s capital market regulators appears to be a compromise between ESG activists’ goals and high-tech firms’ profitability in a strategically important economic sector.

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Promoting Social Responsibility through Ratings: China’s Corporate Social Credit System

In the Western world, the regulatory approach to corporate social responsibility is facilitating and market-based, and the most commonly seen regulatory measure is disclosure. However, in China, the regulatory approach is state-centric and top-down.

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CSR as CPR: The Political Logic of Corporate Social Responsibility in China

CSR in China is in fact CPR. That is, “corporate social responsibility” is essentially “corporate political responsibility” driven by a political logic that establishes a relationship between business and the state rather than between business and society.

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Australia: Fast-Growing Awareness and Activism

ESG-related shareholder proposals have become an established practice in Australia and company directors at recent annual shareholder meetings have faced a barrage of questions relating to carbon emissions reduction, which is a major political issue in Australia. There is also growing support for ESG-related shareholder proposals.

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The Role of Corporate Governance in Addressing Climate Change: The Case of India

No longer is climate change merely within the domain of voluntary conduct on the part of corporations. It is a material financial risk that corporations encounter, thereby imposing duties on the boards of directors to recognize and address it.

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The Rapid Growth of ESG in Japan Through Public-Private Partnership

Japan has recently made significant progress on ESG issues, particularly on climate change. Difficult challenges remain.

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Symposium on the Social Role of Corporations in Asia-Pacific

The genesis of this symposium was a straightforward question from a colleague at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute: What is the hottest topic today in corporate governance throughout Asia?

The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not represent those of USALI or NYU.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.