Case Study: Exploratory Assessment of Sustainability Capability of Textile and Apparel Corporations in China

When reviewing the 86 reports, four key areas or goals in corporate sustainability also emerged: (1) environmental protection, (2) labor relations, (3) operation improvement, and (4) public welfare involvement. Specific examples of each area are available in Table 3.

Table 3 The four identified areas of sustainability activities and examples of the activities and stated goals

The researchers take statements indicating what the company has done and/or is going to do as an expression of goals. These statements include expressions such as optimizing energy structure, establishing training institute, certified by ISO 9001, donating to rural schools, etc. (see Table 3). If a "perfect duty" corporation expressed clear goals in all of the above four areas, the researchers classify it as having clear sustainability goals and coded it as 1. This is because a company could be truly sustainable only if it assumes fundamental responsibility for sustainability, as by having sustainability goals in all four of those categories the researcher identified. Examples of such firms are Luthai Textile Co., Ltd. [鲁泰纺织股份有限公司], Texhong Textile Group Limited [天虹纺织股份有限公司], and Kingdom Holdings Limited [金达控股有限公司]. Following MRCS, if a "perfect duty" company expressed clear goals in one, two, or three areas of sustainability or no goals at all, it was classified as lacking clear sustainability goals and was coded as 0. Also, following MRCS, in the case of "imperfect duty" companies, each whose report expressed sustainability goals for any of the four sustainability areas was categorized as having at least some clear goals and was coded as 1 because its report suggests that it may choose to engage in selective sustainability activities. However, each "imperfect duty" corporation whose report expressed no sustainability goals was coded as 0.

The researchers took statements such as the following as evidence that the firms had in place well-defined structures to achieve their sustainability goals: establishing a leading committee for the implementation of social responsibility, setting up a system to develop policies, procedures, and documents toward sustainability, having an office responsible for staff welfare, and having a set of policies to guarantee occupational health and safety, etc. Again, following MRCS, the researchers classified "perfect duty" corporations indicating structures to achieve their sustainability goals in all four areas noted in the paragraph above as companies having sustainability structures and coded them as 1; others were identified as companies lacking such structures and were coded as 0. Following MRCS, if "imperfect duty" corporations expressed goals of any sustainability activity and stated structures to achieve that stated goals, they were grouped as companies having sustainability structures and coded as 1; otherwise, they were coded as 0. Table 4 summarizes the coding explanations of sustainability goals and structures.

Table 4 Coding explanations of sustainability goals and structures