Sustainability reporting practice in Vietnam: Case study of Bao Viet Holdings and Vietnam dairy products joint stock company
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to understand the sustainability reporting practices
in Vietnam by through the case of Baoviet Holdings and Vinamilk. Sustainability
information is acquired from annual reports from 2008 to 2011, and from sustainability
reports in 2012 and 2013. For that, qualitative research which includes case study and
questionnaire approaches is exploited. Content analysis is the core method used to
looking for sustainability information. Global Reporting Initiatives G4 is the
framework used for evaluation sustainability disclosures.
Findings show that from 2008 to 2011, both Baoviet Holdings and
Vinamilk had very low level of sustainability disclosures. Most of them were about
Ecomomic issues. For sustainability reporting in 2012 and 2013, level of releasing
sustainability information of the two companies had substantially significantly
improved. While Baoviet showed to have better General disclosures, Vinamilk proved
to have superior Specific disclosures. The assessment on report content and quality
indicates that Vinamilk had a better report content and quality, though the differences
in score between two companies were not considerable.
From the evaluation, Baoviet Holdings and Vinamilk can gain an in-depth
assessment of their sustainability reporting practices to make necessary changes for
improvement.
Key words: sustainability reporting, economic disclosure, environmental
disclosure, social disclosure, GRI G4, Global reporting initiatives, qualitative method,
content analysis, Baoviet Holdings, Vinamilk