The mandatory disclosure of ESG by A-share listed companies has completed the "first test". According to statistics from the Industrial Carbon Finance Research Institute, there are a total of 427 companies that are required to disclose their ESG reports for the year 2025 in accordance with exchange regulations. Among them, 18 companies have released independent ESG reports for the first time this year. Fortunately, these "newcomers" have taken a crucial step from 0 to 1 and have established ESG governance structures, incorporating sustainable development into their strategic vision; The worry is that they face the "growing pains" of weak data accumulation and poor historical comparability. Some quantitative indicators only have one year of data, and their continuous disclosure ability and rating improvement still need time to be tested.

Innovation has become the most concerned issue

The Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing Stock Exchanges will release the "Guidelines for Sustainable Development Reports of Listed Companies" in 2024, which specifies that sample companies listed on the SSE 180, STAR Market 50, Shenzhen Stock Exchange 100, and ChiNext Index, as well as companies listed both domestically and internationally, must disclose their 2025 sustainability reports (also known as "ESG reports") before April 30, 2026. Therefore, this year is known as the first year of mandatory ESG disclosure for A-shares.

According to statistics from the Industrial Carbon Finance Research Institute, there are a total of 427 A-share ESG mandatory disclosure companies in 2025, all of which have released ESG reports within the prescribed period. Among them, the report of the first company was released on January 31, 2026, and reports from nearly 100 companies were released in the last three days before the deadline.

Wu Yanyang, Senior Researcher at Xingye Carbon Finance Research Institute, stated that all 427 mandatory disclosure companies have declared in their reports that they have adopted exchange guidelines, indicating that the relevant information disclosure framework issued by the exchange has become an important basis for A-share companies to prepare ESG reports.

In exchange guidelines, dual importance analysis is an important principle for ESG report preparation and disclosure. Companies should analyze and identify issues that affect themselves (financial importance) and stakeholders (impact importance) based on the characteristics of their industry and business.

ESG consulting firm Qiyang Tianxia believes that mandatory disclosure of companies' application of dual importance analysis in their 2025 ESG reports is far superior to that in 2024. At the same time, the important ESG issues identified by these companies also reflect the changing focus of market attention. Through statistical analysis of ESG reports released by 150 mandatory disclosure companies, it was found that the top ranked dual importance issues for 2025 are innovation driven, product safety and quality, climate change response, and supply chain security.

Innovation driven has become the most highly valued ESG issue in the market for 2025. ?Yin Gefei, founder of Qiyang Tianxia and member of the ESG Professional Committee of the China Association of Listed Companies, said that some companies actively seek opportunities for the integration and development of existing businesses and new technologies, especially in digitalization, intelligence, AI applications, etc., such as SF Holding, COSCO SHIPPING, and Shenwan Hongyuan. Some companies consider innovation as the key to development. For example, Zhaoyi Innovation believes that "innovative research and development" is the core driving force for achieving sustainable growth.

In addition, compared to the disclosure situation in 2024, the importance of supply chain security for mandatory disclosure enterprises has significantly increased in 2025. On the issue of supply chain management, Zhaoyi Innovation stated in its 2025 ESG report that as a company adopting a fabless model, any problems with supplier capacity supply and costs may affect product delivery. Goldwind Technology introduced the importance of supply chain management in its 2025 ESG report: if suppliers engage in violations, it may cause business interruption, fines, reputation damage, and may lead to order loss and revenue decline. Both companies emphasize the sustainability of their supply chains.

Yin Gefei stated that the two most significant features of the global market in 2025 are the expansion of AI applications and related investment scale, as well as the impact of tariff policies and geopolitics on the global supply chain. Therefore, many companies have found a point of convergence between ESG and their own business in innovation driven and supply chain security issues.

Compared to the disclosure situation in 2024, the mandatory disclosure of companies' attention to climate change issues in 2025 has decreased. Yin Gefei believes that part of the reason is that the climate information disclosure system has become relatively mature, and many companies have focused on carbon reduction in their early disclosure work. The current decline in attention reflects that corporate ESG disclosure is gradually becoming more pragmatic and further integrated with their actual business.

Continuous disclosure is key

Among the mandatory disclosure companies, 18 companies have disclosed their ESG reports for the first time this year. According to the Wind industry classification, over 60% of these 18 companies belong to the information technology industry, including Guanghong Technology, Jingce Electronics, Runze Technology, Guodun Quantum, Xinyisheng, Zhongke Feice, etc. Other companies belong to industries such as industry, materials, communication services, and healthcare.

Yin Gefei believes that most of these 18 companies are in the upstream of the supply chain and have received less market attention. At the same time, their resource and energy intensity is relatively low, so they lacked the motivation to carry out ESG work before.

Xie An, Dean of Deloitte China Institute for Sustainable Development, said that in the past, these companies would set up a "social responsibility" or "sustainable development" section in their annual financial reports and carry out relatively traditional social responsibility information disclosure. After the official implementation of the exchange guidelines, they began to independently prepare ESG reports and disclose them according to the disclosure framework.

Jiangfeng Electronics announced in February this year that it would reorganize the Board Strategy Committee into the Board Strategy and Sustainable Development Committee, and establish an ESG management system. Guanghong Technology will be included in the sample stock list of the ChiNext Index in 2024, and the company will launch ESG work and establish an ESG governance framework in 2025.

Xie An stated that companies that disclose their ESG reports for the first time generally face the challenge of insufficient comparable data, with some quantitative data lacking long-term accumulation and differences in historical data caliber, requiring overall planning. For example, Guanghong Technology's 2025 ESG report only disclosed data for indicators such as water resource utilization, energy utilization, greenhouse gas emissions, research and development, and innovation for the year 2025. The company stated that it plans to build a data collection model from 2026 to 2027, promote target quantification management, and deeply integrate ESG with the company's strategy and operations from 2028 to 2029.

The reporter noticed that most of the 18 companies conducted a dual importance analysis and disclosure based on 21 issues in accordance with the exchange's guidelines, but did not fully follow the four element framework of "governance strategy impact, risk and opportunity management indicators and objectives" in the guidelines for analysis and disclosure.

Yin Gefei stated that the governance of ESG issues by relevant companies should start with an analysis of the risks and opportunities related to the issues, especially the impact of these risks and opportunities on the company's finances, and develop response strategies based on the analysis. However, in many companies' ESG reports, the above analysis link is relatively vague, indicating that their ESG management has not been integrated into their business practices.

From Wind's ESG rating, the latest ESG ratings of 18 companies are concentrated in the B-BB level, and there has been no significant improvement in the past three years. Some companies, such as Guodun Quantum, Jingjiawei, and Changchuan Technology, have experienced a slight decline in their ESG ratings in the past three years.

Xie An believes that continuous disclosure is very important for a company's ESG rating. "Rating agencies usually not only focus on whether the company has released ESG reports, but also on whether the information disclosure is continuous, whether the data is stable, and whether the governance mechanism is gradually improving. With the continuous and stable disclosure of ESG information by enterprises, rating agencies can see more clearly the improvement trends of enterprises in corporate governance, environmental management, supply chain management, carbon emission management, and other aspects. ESG disclosure is not a one-time compliance action, but a long-term construction and continuous accumulation process. At the same time, relevant companies should establish governance structures, risk identification processes, and goal management systems, and continuously improve them. ?

Quantitative disclosure needs improvement

Xie An believes that the implementation of mandatory disclosure of company ESG reports means that for the A-share market, ESG disclosure has officially entered the stage of "standardized and systematic disclosure" from the stage of "encouraging disclosure". Wu Yanyang stated that the mandatory disclosure of ESG in A-shares has shown a high level of maturity, mainly reflected in the high coverage of issues and the continuous improvement of quantitative disclosure.

In terms of topic coverage, according to statistics from the Industrial Carbon Finance Research Institute, over 85% of companies with mandatory disclosure have achieved full coverage of 21 topics, and over 90% of companies have covered 20 or more topics. Among them, the environmental and corporate governance dimensions have been basically covered, while there are still gaps in coverage for social dimensions such as employee, supply chain, consumer responsibility, and technological ethics.

In terms of quantitative disclosure, issues such as addressing climate change, pollutant emissions, waste management, and energy utilization in the environmental dimension are relatively fully disclosed; The quantitative content of topics such as product safety and quality, data security and privacy protection, innovation drive, and social contribution in the social dimension is rich; The dimensions of corporate governance have basically formed quantitative disclosure.

It is worth noting that there are significant differences in the degree of quantitative disclosure for different topics. Issues such as biodiversity conservation and water resource utilization in the environmental dimension, as well as equal treatment of small and medium-sized enterprises in the social dimension, are still weak areas in disclosure.

In addition, in the ESG disclosure work of 2025, many mandatory disclosure companies have begun to attach importance to the objectivity, completeness, and comparability of disclosure content, and have introduced third-party verification in ESG reports. The Industrial Carbon Finance Research Institute has found that among the mandatory disclosure companies, 142 companies have disclosed independent certification information, accounting for 33.3%, and the scope of enterprises adopting independent certification is gradually expanding.

Wu Yanyang believes that the verification mechanism can to some extent solve the problems of "selective statements" and "narrative packaging" in ESG information disclosure, and enhance investors' trust in information disclosure. Moreover, the verification process will also drive companies to improve their ESG data drafts, internal control processes, and division of responsibilities, promoting ESG work from textual reporting to deep governance.

The current ESG disclosure work needs to fill the gaps in quantification, unify industry standards, strengthen data governance and independent verification. It is suggested that regulatory authorities should accelerate the development of ESG disclosure guidelines for segmented industries, and include the coverage of quantitative indicators in the evaluation dimension. ?Wu Yanyang said.

(Source: China Securities Journal Author: Zheng Cuiying)