2025 ESG Reporting Survey of Hong Kong Listed Companies

August 2025

With tightening global regulations and growing stakeholder expectations, ESG practices and disclosures have shifted from being “optional” for long-term value creation to “essential” for business survival. How to integrate ESG concepts into strategic decision-making and daily operations, establish a robust ESG management system, and achieve high-quality ESG disclosures has become a key issue for companies to build operational resilience and enhance market competitiveness.

Since the launch of the Environmental, Social and Governance Reporting Guide (“the ESG Reporting Guide”) in 2013, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (“HKEX”) has continuously reviewed its ESG reporting framework and rules, which facilitate high-quality ESG disclosure by issuers and promote ESG and sustainability commitments of listed companies. As it enters the 12th year of implementation of the ESG Reporting Guide, the ESG disclosure of Hong Kong listed companies has become more and more mature, and the HKEX's ESG rules and guidelines have continuously deepened, becoming increasingly stringent and comprehensive. In April 2024, HKEX released the Consultation Conclusions on Enhancement of Climate-related Disclosures Under the Environmental, Social and Governance Framework, followed by the ESG Reporting Guide being revised and renamed “the ESG Code”, which came into effect on 1 January 2025. The new Code introduces climate-related disclosure requirements based on the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) climate disclosure standard, adding a new section (Part D) focused on climate-related governance, risk management, and greenhouse gas emissions to facilitate listed companies to improve the transparency and quality of ESG disclosures.

Against this backdrop, PwC conducted an in-depth study on ESG reports published by Hong Kong listed companies in 2024 and selected a certain amount of Hong Kong listed companies from various industries according to the 12 industries of the Hang Seng Industry Classification System for this in-depth study.

This marks PwC's 9^th consecutive year of conducting the ESG reporting study for Hong Kong listed companies. Through ongoing monitoring and systematic analysis, we hope to provide insights for listed companies to better understand regulatory trends, enhance ESG disclosure practices, and respond more effectively to increasingly stringent regulatory requirements and diverse stakeholder expectations.