More than half of Taiwan’s sustainability award-winning companies have been involved in environmental or labour violations, including state-owned enterprises, according to a new report, raising questions over whether the island’s corporate sustainability awards adequately assess companies’ environmental and human rights performance.
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The report, published by civil society groups Taiwan Climate Action Network Research Centre and Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, reviewed the environmental, occupational safety and climate performance of companies recognised by four major Taiwanese sustainability awards: the National Sustainable Development Award, Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards (TCSA), CommonWealth Sustainability Citizen Award and Global Views ESG Corporate Sustainability Award.
Among 113 manufacturing companies that received awards in 2025, nearly half had records of environmental or labour law violations, according to the report released last week.
Of the 93 manufacturing firms recognised under the TCSA programme, nearly one-fifth had environmental violations while about 40 per cent breached labour regulations, including cases involving fatal workplace accidents.
“Sustainability awards should recognise model students,” Taiwan Climate Action Network’s director Chao Chia-wei said. “But because the standards are not rigorous enough, companies that are effectively ‘cheating, skipping class and changing their grades’ can still receive awards.”
The report’s authors argued that sustainability assessments in Taiwan have long overlooked international norms and failed to enforce even basic legal compliance requirements.
Researchers highlighted several examples, including Unimicron Technology Corp, a major supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) server substrate materials, which has repeatedly received TCSA sustainability performance awards since 2014. The company had repeatedly violated Taiwan’s Water Pollution Control Act in recent years, including an incident in May 2024 in which copper discharge levels at one plant exceeded legal limits by seven times, resulting in a NT$3.1 million (US$102,000) fine. The report also noted four fires at its facilities over four years.
State-owned oil and gas company CPC Corp, Taiwan was cited for 89 violations of the Air Pollution Control Act, while disclosing only 18 major penalties in its sustainability reports, according to the report. It also cited workplace safety incidents including fires and 13 occupational safety failures that led to three deaths, although the company continued to receive sustainability awards.
The report also said China Steel Corp, CPC and TECO Electric & Machinery all experienced fatal workplace accidents in 2024 while still receiving Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards.
Green Citizens’ Action Alliance deputy secretary-general Tseng Hung-wen said manufacturing accounts for about half of Taiwan’s carbon emissions and that many major emitters remained behind on climate targets.
Among 38 large-emitting award-winning companies examined in the study, six had not established 2050 net zero goals, while 11 failed to align with Taiwan’s policy target of reducing emissions by 28 per cent, plus or minus two percentage points, by 2030.
The report also found that 28 companies had yet to meet Taiwan’s target of sourcing 30 per cent of electricity from renewable energy by 2030, while another 28 had not clearly disclosed whether they had complied with legal renewable energy obligations for large power consumers.
Coal use also remained a concern. Nine companies using coal-fired power received TCSA awards last year, according to the report. Of those, eight had not set specific coal phase-out timelines and five had increased coal consumption.
The findings come as Taiwan prepares to implement IFRS S2 climate disclosure standards over the next two years, which will require companies to disclose transition plans for addressing climate risks and opportunities.
The groups called for sustainability award systems to introduce exclusion mechanisms for companies involved in major pollution incidents and severe workplace accidents, while urging authorities to establish clearer low-carbon transition strategies and stricter due diligence requirements for supply chains.
