By Marissa Lee
WHEN firms issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports they are supposed to be candid about their shortcomings but it seems Singapore companies are reluctant to wash their dirty linen in public.
An CSR expert told a briefing here on Thursday that local bosses are among the region's most reticent about telling all.
'Across Asia, disclosure levels are not high among many of the listed companies... and it has to be said, in all honesty, they are particularly poor here in Singapore,' said Mr Richard Welford, chairman of CSR Asia, a CSR consultancy.
Mr Welford cited the 2009 Asian Sustainability Rating which ranked Singapore companies as having the second worst disclosure performance in the region, beating only Pakistan.
Another point of concern is how transparency and accountability can be demonstrated by Singapore companies, whose disclosures tend to be general in nature, instead of providing specific environment and workplace issues.
The notion of a firm disclosing its own shortcomings is clearly one that rankles with some bosses, according to Mr Welford, who is here to teach firms about good CSR.
'I recently read a CSR report of a large well-known bank ... and I thought it was completely and utterly useless because there wasn't a single piece of self-criticism in the whole report,' he added.
Mr Welford contrasted this to a recent CSR report from American tech giant Apple that admitted to 17 violations of its own code of conduct, three of which involved the hiring of workers aged 15 in countries where the minimum age for employment is 16.
He stressed that the best reports are balanced: 'Everyone knows the realities of supply chains... we need to be self-critical sometimes because that for me provides credibility.'
