Consultant Column

In the post-pandemic era, companies face greater challenges in technological capabilities and development flexibility. FET has taken a forward-looking approach by establishing the FET Startup Accelerator to discover Taiwan's next 'national champion.' Today (September 20), they held the Phase 2 Demo Day, where the accelerated startup teams demonstrated outstanding achievements across five major fields: ESG Net Zero, Smart Healthcare, Smart Retail, Smart City, and Finance & Insurance. Government officials including MODA Digital Industries Department Director General Lu Zheng-hua, NDC Industrial Development Division Deputy Director Chen Qiong-hua, MOEA SME Administration Deputy Director Wu Jia-ying, and National Development Fund Deputy Executive Secretary Tsai Yi-chien attended to witness and support the startup teams.

In response to the FSC's launch of 'Corporate Governance 3.0 - Sustainable Development Roadmap' and international trends, more companies are preparing sustainability reports. From understanding GRI reporting standards, cross-departmental data collection and collaboration, content writing, to corporate sustainability goal setting, you may want to refer to industry peers or learn from benchmark companies. However, when searching for related content online, do you often find it difficult to directly locate the ESG cases and ESG reports you need for reference?

In 2020, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission released the 'Corporate Governance 3.0 - Sustainable Development Roadmap,' centering on five pillars: 'Strengthening board functions to enhance corporate sustainable value,' 'Improving information transparency to promote sustainable operations,' 'Strengthening stakeholder communication to create good interaction channels,' 'Aligning with international standards to guide stewardship,' and 'Deepening corporate sustainability governance culture and providing diversified products.' This aims to help Taiwanese companies align with international sustainability trends. To more clearly define sustainability reporting, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) reports have been renamed to ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) reports or sustainability reports, better meeting the non-financial information needs of investment institutions and banks.

In recent years, ESG and CSR have become popular search terms, even appearing in Google's 2021 annual keyword queries. But what are they, how do they differ, and what's their relationship with corporate sustainable development? Let's break it down.

The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was established by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in 2015 to address climate change and the Paris Agreement, providing climate-related financial disclosure standards.