China Mobile: Advancing Corporate Responsibility Reporting

The Challenge

While sustainability reporting in Europe, Japan, and the United States has been common practice for years, businesses in China have begun embracing this practice recently. China Mobile issued its first corporate responsibility report in 2006, and it engaged BSR to assist with its 2007 report as a way of advancing its newest sustainability efforts.eams.

Our Strategy

BSR responded by putting together a global team composed of BSR staff with deep experience in the telecommunications industry, familiarity with international standards and approaches to reporting, and specific knowledge of Chinese culture and business practices.

Together, the team spent months interviewing China Mobile officials about how the company defined and implemented its approach to corporate responsibility—responsibility makes perfection”—across 19 different departments at its headquarters and 31 subsidiaries across China. Specifically, discussions focused on understanding the four distinct elements of its approach: improving access to technology in rural villages; offering care and support for society’s disadvantaged; sponsoring philanthropic support for education; and promoting new techniques to manage resource consumption, improve materials efficiency, and decrease environmental impact overall.

Our Impact

With input from the BSR team, China Mobile published its corporate responsibility report in early 2008. China Mobile was praised by the international corporate responsibility community for providing readers with a better understanding of its systematic and strategic approach to corporate responsibility management. In the latter part of 2008, China Mobile became the first mainland Chinese company recognized on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The company also has continued to expand and meet its commitment to absorb nonfinancial criteria into corporate decision-making and pursue its goal to “grow together harmoniously” with industry, society, and nature.