In 2008 the competition to be ranked among CommonWealth Magazine's Top 50 Corporate Citizens was more intense than ever, as an increasing number of Taiwanese companies have made huge strides in environmental protection, innovation, and social engagement.

Through a variety of creative, substantive efforts to fulfill their social responsibilities, these companies have successfully expanded their corporate influence. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which won the "Large Enterprise" category and Sinyi Realty Inc., the winner of the "Medium-sized Enterprise " category, were the best examples in 2008.

TSMC not only led the field in corporate governance and corporate commitment, it pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2010. The world's largest contract chipmaker was also the only Taiwanese company to be selected as a constituent stock of the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index.

Sinyi Realty Inc. previously hired independent board members to set up an auditing committee that strengthened the workings of the board. By defying the conventional wisdom that corporate governance is the weakest link of small- or medium-sized enterprises, Sinyi Realty was the only company of its size class with a score that could have cracked the "large enterprise"top 10.

Intense Competition, New Luminaries

The fierce competition for spots in the Corporate Citizenship Top 50 resulted in a substantial reshuffling of the rankings.

This year, 17 of Taiwan 's top 50 corporate citizens are new faces ? half of them from the high-tech and electronics sectors. Quanta Computer, Holy Stone Enterprise, Bayer Taiwan, Hewlett-Packard Taiwan , and Intel were first-time selections, and all made it into the top 10 of their respective company categories.

"The corporate consciousness of Taiwanese firms has been awakened,"asserts Industrial Technology Research Institute chairman Hsin-I Lin, who headed the panel of judges for CommonWealth Magazine's 2008 Corporate Citizenship Awards.

That Taiwan 's high-tech manufacturers play such a crucial role in the global supply chain "reflects the world's profound recognition of the accumulated capacity of Taiwanese industry, and explains Taiwan 's competitiveness at the global level,"Lin says.

Optoelectronics component manufacturer Lite-On Technology Corporation had a particularly strong showing, vaulting from 16th in last year's survey to fourth this year. Although Lite-On is not a name-brand company, for several years it has sponsored its own award program to encourage innovation among the younger generation. The company is also environmentally active, committing to specific greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and adopting green building principles in designing its headquarters. That commitment has again been recognized this year.

Competition among foreign firms was equally intense, with no company in the top five outpacing the enterprise trailing immediately behind it by more than 0.24 poin ts. Last year's pacesetter, DuPont Taiwan , fell to third in 2008, but still scored the highest in the area of environmental protection.

Scores were up across the board in the 2008 survey, with the most noticeable progress made in the environmental protection category.

As one of the world's major hot-button issues, the environment has been the greatest source of pressure in encouraging corporate citizenship. A survey of CEOs around the world conducted by international management consulting firm McKinsey & Company revealed that environmental issues, such as climate change, are foremost on the minds of corporate leaders. In the next five years, the environment will also become the issue of greatest concern to the public and politicians, and the one most impacting society.

The soaring cost of energy has only intensified the business community's sense that the environment is the most pressing crisis it faces. PricewaterhouseCoopers' 11th Annual Global CEO Survey found that 60 percent of top executives saw the high cost of energy as the most influential factor in charting corporate environmental policy, even more important than the spate of global regulations that have given companies headaches in recent years. Some 71 percent of these executives believed that dealing with the energy issue was the top consideration guiding the direction of their companies' R&D programs.

Environmental Protection through Execution, Innovation

Two of Taiwan 's corporate models on the environment, Delta Electronics and Everlight Chemical Industrial, again received the highest ratings this year for their environmental practices. Leading foods company Uni-President Enterprises Corp. also distinguished itself by changing its instant noodle packaging from plastic to paper, increasing its use of domestic agricultural products, reducing energy waste, and lowering its carbon dioxide emissions.

E. Sun Financial Holding, which rose in the rankings to eighth this year after placing 14th in 2007, has begun factoring in the environmental policies of potential borrowers and the amount of pollution their industries produce when evaluating their creditworthiness ? an effort to compel more companies to take genuine action on the issue. Retail giant President Chain Store Corporation, the operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores in Taiwan, launched a "Light Down"campaign in July, in which it turns off the lights on the covered sidewalks in front of its 4,600 stores for four hours every night. The company estimates the measure will save 770,000 kilowatt hours of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 408 tons per month, an amount equivalent to the emissions produced by 27,000 cars in a day.

Aside from passively satisfying international indexes, Taiwan 's leading companies are beginning to stand up, expand their ambitions, and guide others in their supply chains to create a new green revolution.

The high-ceiling lobby of AU Optronics Corp. is often bustling with activity at noontime, as streams of visitors, many of whom are speaking Japanese, rush to buy the company's products or discuss equipment deals. At the end of a stylish showroom, the number " 51"appears on a small digital display that resembles an electronic clock, a proud reminder that AUO has developed panels that now consume only 51 percent of the electricity they once did. That ability to produce energy-saving panels directly determines how "green"downstream producers of LCD TVs or other LCD-panel products will be.

This focus on sustainability is now part of the AUO guarantee and has permeated its processes at every level, from its corporate vision and R&D program to its purchasing and transportation operations.

"You don't start studying just for taking tests,"says AUO vice chairman and CEO Hsuan-bin Chen, emphasizing that the company's interest in environmental issues goes beyond satisfying international or customer standards and is a key source of motivation in guiding innovation and R&D. AUO hopes to extend that passion to unite its more than 1,000 suppliers, raw material producers and equipment manufacturers in developing greener production processes.

And what does Chen think will be the key to success of this green campaign?

"It's all a question of execution,"he says.

In three to five years, the "greenness"of a company's operations will determine its competitiveness in harnessing new opportunities, and a company's ability to execute such a strategy has now become the driving force in improving environmental quality.

Social Engagement Starts with Education

Environmental consciousness is just one side of corporate citizenship. Responsible companies also make considerable efforts to raise the capabilities of their employees and customers and take actions to benefit society as a whole. For those enterprises with a social conscience that are willing to make an extra effort to improve Taiwan's communities, education is the most commonly chosen point of entry, regardless of a company's size or where its headquarters are located.

E. Sun Financial Holding, which catapulted into this year's top 10, created libraries in 100 remote elementary schools, repainting unused classrooms and kitchens and providing new books to turn dilapidated facilities into warm reading gardens where students are happy to lose themselves.

"Children are the hope of society, and therefore the hope of enterprises,"says E. Sun Financial chairman Huang Yung-jen.

Because E. Sun Financial's employees support the idea of narrowing the disparity in education resources, the more they participate in such activities, the greater the sense of honor and belonging they have toward the company.

Citibank, which has long invested in financial education, continues to recruit employees to serve as educational volunteers and sends them to visit remote communities and vocational schools to teach single mothers and less accomplished students basic money management concepts, such as loans and interest rates.

"Disadvantaged groups are usually among those most easily led astray by the temptation of volatile financial products,"says Citi Taiwan spokeswoman Anita Su in explaining why her bank insists on starting with vocational schools outside big cities.

Chemical giant Bayer, which made the corporate citizenship rankings this year for the first time, is another corporation that is sharing its professional knowledge with students. Bayer donated a European-standard laboratory to Jih Ching Elementary School in Taipei ? the first of its kind in Taiwan ? which even former Academia Sinica president and Nobel laureate chemist Lee Yuan-tseh praised for its color, lighting and equipment. The lab gives these young students a chance to do hands-on experiments, to learn to observe, and perhaps at some point in the distant future to make their own mark in the world of chemistry.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises tend to reach out first to their own communities. AVerMedia Technologies, which squeezed into the top five in the medium-sized company category, mobilizes employees to serve as volunteers at a Jhonghe area elementary school. The volunteers get to the school every afternoon by 4 p.m. to help students from single-parent, new-immigrant or other disadvantaged families with their homework.

"The only way we can serve society is by taking practical steps,"says Moses Lee, AVerMedia vice chairman and CFO, in a refrain commonly heard among small- and medium-sized enterprises. Regardless of their profitability or growth rates, these companies don't have the wherewithal to establish a foundation, so most of them "encourage employee participation"to give back to society.

Creating Alliances to Extend One's Influence

"You can never do enough"to give back to society, says ING Antai's Australian CEO John Wylie. In his experience, an enterprise must be adept at choosing the right projects, and forming alliances.

Since 2004, ING Antai has sponsored 100 public welfare activities a year to the tune of NT$50,000 per event. The main criteria for selecting the activities, chosen from among proposals submitted by people in the company, are the involvement of nonprofit organizations, their ability to get people from both inside and outside the organization to participate, and their potential impact. Over the past four years, ING Antai has held more than 400 events in cooperation with nonprofit groups to care for more than 240,000 people, including disadvantaged families and senior citizens living alone.

In the past, companies were often seen as faceless machines isolated from society, busy calculating their profits behind closed doors. But as the concept of social consciousness has taken root in the private sector, a growing number of companies are now freeing resources and people to become the generators of change in society.

"The values espoused by companies tend to drive the values held by society," argues Taiwan Mobile president Harvey Chang. His is a view shared by many enterprises that impose on themselves high standards of corporate citizenship.

Taiwan 's enterprises have gone through a learning curve but are now more readily embracing corporate citizenship, learning from and influencing one another. It is now conceivable that, in the future, corporate citizenship will be an inextricable part of the DNA of the vast majority of Taiwan 's companies.

Translated from the Chinese by Luke Sabatier

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Chinese Version: 矛盾的和解共生　如何逆轉?