Page 200 - SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES & COVID-19

30 How Progressive Indonesian Big
Companies Are?

Arie Rahayu Hariani, Ancella A. Hermawan

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

PURPOSE

In the midst of US chaos that resulted in 150.000 Covid-19 deaths (NYTimes, 2020); we were reminded that, despite
all facilities and wealth in the world, it’s actually really hard to have civilized society that aimed a quality life for all
its members without great regard to its social issues like racism and discrimination (Yong, 2020). Big businesses play
an important part in this matter. Facebook, for example, has been under fire for profiting from hate that contributed
immensely to recent racist behavior. Yet, it was not until its big advertisers like Disney and Patagonia started to pull
out from the platform that Facebook willing to change their policy (Bond, 2020). It was then pertinent to explore big
companies’s stance on social issues.

One of the formal way companies could express its concern on social issues was through sustainable development
goals (SDGs) in the companies’ report. PWC Report (Scott & McGill, 2018) found 72% companies mention SDGs in
their report, up 10% from 62% in 2017. Yet out of the three topics on sustainability report, which were economic,
environmental, and social impact, social impact probably the least discussed of all. Szekely & Brocke (2017) only listed
2 point of social impact out of 10 analysis. This is understandable, given many social issues could spark controversy and
unwanted attention that could harm companies’ reputation.

In regard of social impact, Szekely & Brocke (2017) find that many companies report on labour practices. This was in line
The Brookings Institution Report (Kaur & Nguyen, 2018) found that companies tend to prioritize SDGs that align with
their core business rather than an all-encompassing approach and over 80% of the companies identify most strongly
with business-case drivers as opposed to value-based drivers. Szekely & Brocke (2017) also report that most social
sponsorship was on school and education which was of course everyone’s favorite.

As a nation soaked in diversity, Indonesia also has many social concerns. This research attempt to map out Indonesian
big companies inclination on reporting social issues by examining its sustainable reports for their attempt at social
impact and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

STUDY DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

We employ text-mining technique on publicly awailable 2019 sustainability reports, especially their social sections
and SDGs topic, to determine the topics they address. Topics are identified through considering which terms are often
occuring. Each sustainability report consists of several topics. On the basis of this topics information, we identified
what each company was disclosing related to SDGs and the GRI’s social standards. This will enable us to benchmark
performance against of their peers (industries).

FINDINGS

We expect to see big companies express their concerns on social issues through SDGs and/or social standards in their
report. Yet they probably inclined to report more on business-cased drivers rather than other social issues there were.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

We expect this research will benefit the public by allowing them to see the inclination of big companies on social
issues. This hopefully could encourage better sustainability policy from the government. Future research step could be
analysing if concerns in social issues result in better long-term performance.

International Conference on Sustainability 199
(5 Sustainability Practitioner Conference)
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