“East Asia 30” announced by Hankyoreh Economic Research Institute The first-ever “Asia CSR evaluation model” developed by experts from three East Asian countries based on Asian perspectives. Reflecting regional uniqueness such as respecting community by complementing Western standards A total of 708 companies China, Japan, and Korea listed on the FTSE All World Index (market value basis), the Index made by London Stock Exchange and Financial Times were evaluated for East Asia 30. 452 companies, 59 from Korea, 339 from Japan, 54 from China that disclosed their CSR performance of recent 3 years were finally chosen to be assessed. ■ What are characteristics that were shown in ‘East Asia 30’? “Asia CSR evaluation model”, the base of evaluation work, are comprised by 13 indicators in 3 domains of environment, social and governance. Scores of each indicator is converted into 100th percentile based on the measurement of to what extent requirements of each category are met. Converted score is given different weight based on the importance of the domain and indicators to derive total CSR scores. This first-ever done evaluation work shows several characteristics that tell current status of CSR management of Asia. Japanese companies outnumber other countries in the East Asia 30 list compared with Korean and Chinese companies. 20 Japanese companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Konica Minolta Holdings and FUJIFILM Holdings were included in East Asia 30. Japanese companies show great performances by having 19 companies in East Asia Environment 30, 20 companies in East Asia Society 30, and 20 companies in East Asia Governance 30 Limitations found in CSR management of East Asian enterprises. Many Asian companies began active stakeholder engagement but they emphasize government relations in top priority than engagement with communities, labor unions and civil society organizations. Especially, Chinese and Korean companies think CSR management same with participating national agenda led by policies like “Green Growth” or “Harmonious Society” by the Chinese and Korean government. This relates with higher performances of Japanese companies. Still many corporations do not approach CSR management in voluntary, futuristic and strategic perspectives. ■ East Asia 30 evaluation: Implication and Expected Impacts This evaluation bears the greatest significance in that the three East Asian nations took the initiatives in evaluating the CSR of their own companies for the first time ever. There are many standards to see status of corporations like 10 principles of UN Global Compact, guidelines of Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 26000. These Western society value based global standards were considered to have limitation to cover some attributes unique to the East Asian region that give higher values for community or bonding between families or employees. It is meaningful that businesses and experts from China, Japan, and Korea started to set their own evaluation standards to promote CSR, a shift from their focus of the past on how to respond to new evaluation and standards evolved in the West. It does not mean that Asia CSR evaluation model will take a totally different path than direction of Western standards. Still banning of labor union activities or transferring ownership illegally have been found in many corporations under the name of Asian values, which are not advanced standards in corporate management. Especially, increasing transparency of CSR of State Owned Chinese corporations under strong influence of the Chinese government is considered as one aspect that needs for chance. Professor YANG Bin of Tsinghua University, a member of the Asia CSR Expert Committee said “We believe the Asia CSR evaluation model would become a good benchmark for East Asian companies as the model has added the Asian context and values to the global standards, not replacing existing global standards.” The Asia CSR Expert Committee said “Companies in the region should put further efforts in developing voluntary CSR philosophy to meet global standards and to satisfy Asian context.” The Committee added that “We will upgrade the evaluation model as well as update the top 30 list every year.” By CHOI, Woo-Sung, morgen@hani.co.kr