About 175 Hong Kong-listed companies, 15% of the exchange’s listed outfits and including the likes of drinks giant Tsingtao Brewery and the petrochemicals behemoth, Sinopec, have been found to have committed 750 environmental violations on the mainland as of March 2010, according to a report compiled by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) and the Hong Kong-based Civic Exchange.
The organizations said the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx), which runs the local stock exchange, should amend its listing rules to promote more environmental disclosure by locally listed companies with operations on the mainland.
Asian Online Times reported that on land, 320 million people in China do not have clean drinking water and one third of the rivers are polluted, Edward Chan Yue-fai, Greenpeace’s campaign manager, said, citing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.