Social, Philanthropic and Ethical Reporting of the Chemical Companies

Abstract

Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility requires balanced consideration of environmental, economic, ethic, philanthropic and social issues. The companies’ effort to present relevant responsible activities can be considered as ones of the most meaningful reporting goal with strong impacts on important stakeholders as well as on the broad society. Presentation of economic and environmental information via regular reports and static companies’ web pages can be considered as a common company practice, but social, philanthropic and ethic areas of Corporate Social Responsibility are still underestimated as well as their presentation. The main objective of the contribution is to evaluate the level of presentation of social, philanthropic and ethical issues among Czech chemical companies. Based on theoretical basis concerning international reporting standards of Corporate Social Responsibility and specific circumstances of chemical industry, a preliminary research was realized among all Czech chemical companies’ web pages to assess reported social, philanthropic and ethic activities and indicators. The most important findings are closer analyzed and discussed. The overall web pages research by content analysis was used to identify most often presented social, philanthropic and ethic information an on the other hand to reveal uncommon or neglected social and ethic topics. Assessment of company’s social and ethic activities helps to reveal the impact of chemical companies to quality of life for citizens and society surrounding chemical factories and this contribution helps to improve understanding of importance of corporate social, philanthropic and ethical issues and their reporting.