Leading business brands showcase sustainability in Vietnam’s top 100 listing

By Ha Truong    December 18, 2018 | 02:00 am PT
Baoviet, BIDV, Bridgestone, Heineken and Coca-Cola are in Vietnam’s sustainable development listing for third year in a row.

Familiar names have dominated the list of top 100 firms in a sustainable development listing compiled by the Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD) and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

The top 100 were chosen from around 500 companies that participated in the evaluation program for sustainable development.

Big brands like Baoviet, BIDV, Bridgestone, Heineken and Coca-Cola made it to the list for the third year in a row.

The criteria for assessing sustainable development were consistent growth, rational exploitation, economical use of natural resources, and protection and improvement of habitat quality.

In the three years since the program began, the number of criteria used has fallen from 151 in 2016 to 131 this year.

This year's Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI), one of VCCI's initiatives to promote sustainability in the business community, has been adjusted in line with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and with Vietnamese law and international practice.

This is a set of indicators that can help Vietnamese enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), align themselves with key concepts of sustainable development, organizers said.

At a function held recently to announce the ranking, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said Vietnam targeted both rapid growth and sustainable development.

He said rapid growth was needed to bridge the gap with other countries, but sustainable development was vital for building Vietnam into a "mighty, prosperous" nation.

Vu Tien Loc, chairman of the VCCI and co-chairman of the VBCSD, stressed that the business community needs to change its mindset and work toward sustainable development.

The concept of sustainable development emerged in the 1970s. In 1987, in the "Our Mutual Future" report by the United Nations World Council on Environment and Development, sustainable development was defined as one that meets realistic growth needs without interfering with the needs of future generations.

The World Summit on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002, identified sustainable development as a process that has a close, reasonable and harmonious combination of three aspects: economic development, social development and environmental protection.

 
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