Celebrating their 25th Anniversary - HKICPA Best Corporate Governance & ESG Awards 2025 are open for applications

Organized by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA), the Best Corporate Governance and ESG Awards 2025 (the Awards) are now open for applications until 24 July 2025. The Awards aim to recognize outstanding listed companies and public sector/ not-for-profit organizations (PSOs) that are committed to high standards of corporate governance (CG) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, integrating CG and ESG considerations into their values, strategy and operation.

Edward Au, President of the HKICPA and Chair of the Judging Panel of the Best Corporate Governance and ESG Awards 2025, said, “For the past 25 years, our Awards have set objective and authoritative benchmarks for good governance performance in both the private and public sectors in Hong Kong. For 14 of those years, we have also championed excellence in ESG, encouraging the adoption of best CG and ESG practices and reporting in the Hong Kong market. We continue to encourage companies and PSOs to participate in the Awards and to demonstrate their leadership as sustainable and resilient organizations that contribute to both the economy and the community.”

Celebrating their 25th Anniversary, the Awards are regarded as an impartial and rigorous assessment of the CG and ESG performance of organizations in Hong Kong. The top level, the “Most Sustainable Organizations (MSO) Awards”, recognizes those companies and PSOs that invest their efforts and resources equally in developing their CG and ESG practices and reporting. In the MSO section of the competition, organizations can compete for Diamond, Platinum, Gold Awards, or Special Mentions. The Awards would also acknowledge those organizations that demonstrate a high-quality performance specifically in CG or ESG.

New Updates for 2025

This year, the Awards introduce two important updates. To provide better opportunities for new entries to be recognized in the main categories and encourage established winners to continue advancing in their practices, multiple-time listed company awardees will be included in a separate section for “Elite Past Winners”.

Additionally, the HKICPA will review companies listed on the Main Board between 2022 to 2025, to identify recently-listed companies that demonstrate an exemplary level of performance in their CG and/ or ESG practices and disclosures.

Entering the HKICPA’s Awards remains free of charge. Supported by artificial intelligence (AI) for the first time, all applicants will undergo an initial screening. Shortlisted applicants will then be evaluated and judged by panels comprised of experienced and expert representatives from the Hong Kong SAR Government, financial regulators, academia, investors, professional associations and firms, as well as individual experts in the fields of CG and ESG.

The inspiring efforts of the awardees will be celebrated at a presentation ceremony scheduled to be held in October this year. A judges’ report, containing the overall findings and observations of the judges, will be produced and published on the HKICPA website later this year.

To recognize organizations that align with regulatory standards

Among other focus areas, the Awards continue to reflect the latest developments in local and international sustainability standards. The Institute has published Hong Kong sustainability disclosure standards (HKFRS SDS), which are fully aligned with the IFRS SDS (the ISSB Standards), i.e. HKFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and HKFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures. Further, with effect from 1 January 2025, HKEX’s Environmental, Social and Governance Reporting Code, at Appendix C2 of the Listing Rules (ESG Code), requires issuers to make climate-related disclosures in phases, reflecting HKEX’s commitment to drive the sustainability agenda among listed companies, and to prepare companies for sustainability and climate reporting, in accordance with IFRS/ HKFRS SDS. Changes will also be implemented in the Corporate Governance Code (CG Code), at Appendix C1 of the Listing Rules, commencing 1 July 2025, with phasing in of some of the new requirements.   In this context, certain refinements have been introduced into the Awards’ review criteria to take account of these new standards and the changes in the two codes.

While ESG is a principal focus of the Awards, companies’ and PSOs’ performance in CG remains critical. Therefore, the judges will assess organizations on a wide range of governance indicators, including board effectiveness and independence, diversity, risk management and internal controls, capital management, as covered under the CG Code and Listing Rules. The Awards will also examine what organizations are doing in terms of their cyber security governance. This is a new focus area introduced by the HKICPA last year, which cuts across both CG and ESG, emphasizing how these two aspects of performance need to be integrated and form part of an organization’s culture. The judges have previously stated that, ultimately, effective ESG cannot be achieved without a high standard of CG, nor can good CG be separated from sound ESG.

In the final analysis, sustainable companies must also be financially sustainable, so the Awards emphasize transparency and clarity around financial reporting, particularly where there may have been significant changes in financial performance in the latest reporting period that call for a clear explanation.

First organized in 2000 as CG Disclosure Awards, the HKICPA’s Best Corporate Governance and ESG Awards remain among Hong Kong’s most prestigious and influential awards. The judging criteria assess whether organizations have implemented a high standard of disclosures and underlying practices that clearly exceed any minimum statutory and regulatory requirements, and to determine whether organizations have incorporated good CG and ESG into their values and culture.

We are pleased to have received enthusiastic response from our financial sponsors once again this year, including that from prominent CPA and consultancy firms (see Note 1), the Awards’ AI services sponsor (see Note 2), and media sponsors (see Note 3), reflecting their appreciation and endorsement of the objectives of the Awards, as well as the reputation and standing of the Awards in the Hong Kong market.

For more details of the Awards, please visit: https://www.hkicpa.org.hk/en/Thought-leadership/Corporate-governance-and-sustainability/Best-Corporate-Governance-and-ESG-Awards/Background

^{Caption: The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants Best Corporate Governance and ESG Awards 2025 are now open for entries until 24 July 2025.}

^{Caption: The HKICPA Best Corporate Governance and ESG Awards, first established in 2000, have been setting benchmarks for exemplary corporate governance and ESG performance over the past 25 years, actively promoting best practices in corporate governance and ESG in the local market.}  

Note 1: list of financial sponsors (in alphabetical order)

1.    Ace Sustainability & Risk Advisors Ltd.

2.    Alvarez & Marsal Asia Ltd.

3.    AVISTA Group

4.    CityLinkers Group

5.    Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

6.    Ernst & Young

7.    Forvis Mazars Risk Advisory Services Ltd.

8.    Grant Thornton Hong Kong Ltd.

9.    HLB Hodgson Impey Cheng Ltd.

10.  KPMG

11.  Moore CPA Ltd.

12.  PwC

13.  Riskory Consultancy Ltd.

14.  RSM Hong Kong

Note 2: AI services sponsor

Wizpresso

Note 3: list of media sponsors (in alphabetical order)

1.    ET Net

2.    Hong Kong Economic Times

3.    The Standard