A-share Green Report

2021

Country/area: China

Organisation: NBD (National Business Daily of China)

Organisation size: Big

Cover letter:

Every day, governments at all levels in China would publish a large number of information in regards to environmental administrative penalties, pollution source emission monitoring, and the ECA (Environmental Compliance Approval) information on specific public networks. These environmental risk information concerning the public interest is often over-dispersed, complex and too professional, so it is rarely paid attention to by the public or revealed by the media.

Since September 2020, NBD (National Business Daily of China), China’s leading professional financial media, has been working with IPE (Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs) , a well-known non-governmental organization in environmental protection, to tap into China’s complex environmental risk data from the perspectives of public company environmental responsibility and green investment.

We have applied technical methods to monitor nearly 4,000 A-share listed companies in China and the companies they own or have invested in. Every week we apply in-depth analysis to the data, looking for particularly noteworthy stories or misconducts, and using AI + Writing to write news stories that are easy to understand. Then we try to get the stories to reach more people, especially for holders or potential buyers of listed companies’ stocks to see the risk of investment behind environmental problems.

NBD is a cutting-edge financial newspaper in mainland China, known for revealing reports on listed companies and investment and financial management. It is committed to becoming the watchman of China’s economic society and capital market. The project was planned and led by the Beijing team of the company channel, the core news division of NBD, who mainly studies and reports on listed companies. They believe that how a company is operated will affect the public interest, and therefore having supervisors watching what they are doing is beneficial to the public welfare.

Description of portfolio:

The “A-share Green Report” project is a long-term data journalism project that continuously generates new stories and is constantly getting upgraded. From September to December 2020, we reported more than 200 environmental risk events through AI + Writing, and conducted 16 in-depth analysis reports.

Every week, nearly 100 pieces of data which is provided by IPE are getting verified and categorized by our reporters, and then they would turn the information into instant news in batches by AI + Writing. The reporter then would further cross-compare other information from listed companies to analyze and explore the impact of environmental incidents on listed companies, and ultimately they would carry out an analysis report called “A-Share Green Weekly”. This project has pioneered a new model for mining news through dynamic data in China and has also created a unique environmental risk assessment list for listed companies in China.

The challenge we face is to verify and categorize complex and mixed raw material, and to accurately match the equity relationships of related companies. At present, the reporter has worked out a set of efficient methods with technical assistance. In addition, to come up with a standardized evaluation system for professional information concerning the environment is also a challenge. But now we have jointly developed a set of persuasive scoring mechanisms that evaluates the environmental performance with our partner institutions IPE. In this project, the most complicated is to cooperate with different departments and agencies. In the long run, we still need to continue to explore in order to better work out the workflow and mechanisms.

The impact of the “A-share Green Report” project is obvious. It has received positive rectification and feedback from more than 30 listed companies on environmental incidents since it was put into operation, which has been four mouths as of today. And unexpectedly, the project also received feedback and attention from Zhejiang Monetary Authority, as it is also their job to urge listed companies to improve their environmental protection level.