Changing Mindset on Corporate Sustainable Development

 

Accordingly, this index was designed by scientific and technical experts and aimed to serve themselves and business managers. Unlike other indicators, the AIChE index includes set of common indicators and parameters such as environment index, health and work safety index, innovation index and social index. The indexes are based on 30 publicly available data sources, allowing businesses to measure their efforts and industry.

 

Ms Nguyen Thi Bich Hoa, Deputy Director of the AITVN emphasised that sustainability index is the leading concern not only in Vietnam but around the globe, which is used to assess the sustainability of businesses. At the same time, the index helps measure corporate sustainability, notify community, and report to shareholders and the state, etc. In the process of deepening integration into the world, businesses rely on the index to know whether they will become a supplier to global enterprises or not, as well as a member in the supply chain or not. This proves the importance of sustainability index.

 

However, the challenges posed to the green sustainable growth of businesses is huge including backward level of development which is behind that of many countries, legal system which is not yet synchronised and consistent with the global trend. Most businesses today that use old and obsolete technology have low development level. In addition, access to loans is still difficult; and there are not many incentives for businesses to get loans for economic green development. Through survey in 100 businesses in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, real weakness in the above-mentioned field of enterprises can be seen. Specifically, the level of investment in innovation of equipment technology of enterprises accounted for only 0.3 percent of the year's revenue. The results after the survey also showed that the majority of businesses are using technology of the 80s of the last century; 69 percent of enterprises depend on raw materials; 52 percent depend on imported equipment and technology; 19 percent of businesses are dependent on technology know-hows; 7 percent of staff have expertised technology. Attention in investment in and innovation of technology (innovating equipment, production organization, human resources and market information) is best expressed in the non-state sector enterprises and those with foreign investment. Key industries, mechanical engineering, chemical, electric and electronics sectors have relatively high rate of investment in and import of machinery (over 20 percent a year).

 

Hoang Duong Tung, Deputy Director of the General of Department of Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, shared that to build a green economy, it is important to make environment index part of the enterprise evaluation report. The State Bank needs to have policies to create favourable conditions for enterprises with good environment index to make loans to expand business and promote the use of clean technologies.

 

Ha Thu Thanh, President of Deloitte Vietnam, said that businesses are those using all three financial, social and natural resources. Therefore, there should be an organisation which has clear criteria in evaluating environment to support enterprises. In particular, it is essential to change the mindset of the majority of today's enterprises in business development. Accordingly, it is important to invest boldly in innovating advanced and environmentally friendly technology."

 

Along with the trend of international integration, clean production has become one of the important strategies of Vietnam. During production, clean production includes preservation of materials and energy, elimination of toxic raw materials, reduction of the amount and toxicity of all emissions of waste at source. For products, cleaner production means reducing negative impact throughout the product life-cycle, from design to disposal. As for service, cleaner production brought environmental factors in the design and development of services. When businesses have awareness of cleaner production, enterprises can open up opportunities in new markets and produce higher quality products with higher selling prices, meeting the requirements of product origin in export.

 

Mr Nguyen Quang Vinh, General Secretary of Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (Vbcsd), said that green and clean production will enhance business competing capacity, a huge advantage cleaner and greener production brings. However, many businesses still believe that they themselves have not yet captured the process of cleaner production, thus to apply in practical production. Small and medium-sized enterprises can hardly successfully apply this production model due to difficulties in investment capital and technology and the fact that the business itself is also not aware of all cleaner production process. Besides, in the import of machinery and technology from overseas, capital itself is a closed and automated cycle, which makes it difficult to adjust one of the production stages to meet the standards for green and clean manufacturing. Therefore, there should be comprehensive solutions from the input, production process to the output of products.

Currently the Government, and related ministries and agencies have also issued several action programs aimed at efficient use of land and water resources. All industrial manufacturing businesses are encouraged to apply cleaner production model. The State also had a number of policy tools to encourage enterprises such as building legal provisions; creating economic tools; offering supporting measures; implementing guidelines to build cleaner production projects, etc. These are the advantages for businesses to move towards greater use of cleaner production model in order to enhance competitiveness and improve the quality of products.