Singapore, Malaysia show huge jumps in corporate responsibility reporting

Singapore, India and Malaysia are leading the way when it comes to corporate responsibility (CR) reporting in Asia, as a large number of local organisations have accepted it as a standard business practice.

A KPMG survey of CR reporting in 2013 found 80% of Singapore companies regularly produce CR reports.

This is a 37% jump when compared with 2011, making Singapore the third country on the list of the world's highest rises in CR reporting rates.

The island is only behind India and Chile, which achieved growth rates of 53% and 46% respectively.

"It is clear that sustainability is becoming part of business language and culture in Singapore and across Asia Paci­fic," said Sharad Somnani, partner, KPMG in Singapore.

The report attributed the jump in Singapore to "the introduction of the Singapore stock exchange (SGX) sustainability reporting guide for listed companies and a revised code of corporate governance".

The report included the general Asia Pacific region had the biggest overall increase from 49% in 2011 to 71% in 2013.

Inclusion of new countries in the survey, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, were identified to be contributing factors to Asia's jump.

"However, the majority of the increase is due to exceptionally high growth rates in several countries in Asia," the report stated.

Malaysia was also listed as one of the countries with the highest CR rates.

Even though CR reporting policies are still in their infancy, 98% of Malaysian organisations were identified to be devoted towards regular CR reporting.

"There has been a surge in CR reporting in Malaysia which I see as a tipping point in making CR standard business practice here, encouraged by the Malaysian stock exchange's requirement that listed companies report on CR activities," said Datuk Hew Lee Lam Sang, partner in KPMG Malaysia.

The survey covered 4,100 companies across 41 countries around the world.