CSR: China now sets global tempo and markets feel it

We were recently asking a simple question: does getting out of the CSRD perimeter mean getting out of the market? The answer was no. Today, the same logic extends internationally and the finding is even more striking.

In April 2024, China's three largest stock exchanges, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, issued guidelines requiring structured sustainability reporting to their major issuers. The system has since gained regulatory strength: the first mandatory publications, covering 2025 data, were expected before 30 April 2026. Even before that date, at the end of June 2025, nearly 2,500 Chinese listed companies had already published a sustainability report, which was about 46% published.

What is remarkable is not only the pace of adoption. This is the conceptual framework chosen. China has not opted for a minimalist approach focused solely on financial risk. It has adopted the principle of double materiality, the same as the one that structures the European CSDD: companies must identify both the issues that could affect their financial performance, and the significant impacts of their activities on the economy, the environment and society. The CSDS, the Chinese Sustainability Disclosure Standards, go even further than those adopted by Singapore or Hong Kong, which stick to the financial materiality of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). China, on the other hand, has chosen alignment on both dimensions.

When CSR becomes a documented competitive advantage

For a French leader, this signal deserves attention. Not because China's regulations concern it directly, but because it reveals a structural trend: sustainability reporting is becoming a global market standard, just as international accounting standards have been in their time.

Several concrete implications are emerging. Global investors are applying increasingly coherent ESG (environment, social, governance) analysis grids, whether in Hong Kong, Frankfurt or New York. International suppliers standardize their supplier assessments around these benchmarks and supply chains through China will see this requirement naturally go up. Moreover, Chinese companies publishing structured ESG data are becoming more readable on European markets, where the laws on due diligence in the supply chain create precisely the need for this traceability.

The French company which has nothing structured does not face a comfortable regulatory vacuum. It faces an increasing readability gap with competitors who document their impacts and risks. This is reflected in less well-positioned calls for tenders, more expensive financing, and long-term partnerships.

Global convergence towards comparable ESG standards is under way. It is not progressing at the pace of European regulatory debates. It is progressing at the pace of markets.

Is your CSR approach sufficiently structured to be readable by an international partner or investor?

What ACTE recommends

• Mapping your international stakeholders: customers, suppliers, financers and identifying those who already publish ESG data
• Evaluate your exposure to markets where sustainability reporting becomes a supplier selection criterion
• Minimize your double materiality approach: what CSR issues affect your performance? What impacts does your activity generate?
• Utiliser le standard VSME comme socle de formalisation accessible avant d’envisager un alignement avec les référentiels internationaux

Identify your 3 priority actions by completing our free CSR self-assessment tool and take stock with an expert: https://www.acte-international.com/diag-rse/

• Bourses de Shanghai, Shenzhen et Pékin, « Guidelines » reporting de durabilité, avril 2024
• Alina Quach, Échanges Internationaux / ICC France, « La double matérialité en Chine », 2025
• Green Central Banking, « China’s ISSB-aligned reporting rules ‘go beyond many global standards' », janvier 2026
• KSAPA, « Chinese Sustainability Disclosure Standards vs. CSRD and ISSB », 2024