Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) has been picked as the company with the highest sense of social responsibility, according to a survey of local university students, whose results were released yesterday.

The SEE magazine-organized poll invited students from 10 tertiary institutions to choose the companies with the greatest sense of corporate social responsibility.

Of the 455 votes returned, MTRC came top with 54.7 per cent of the votes, followed by Cathay Pacific Airways with 49.2 per cent, and Hong Kong Bank with 31.9 per cent.

Fourth and fifth places were taken by CLP Holdings and Hang Seng Bank that secured 28.4 per cent and 26.4 per cent of the votes.

In general, the top five companies were considered to have performed well in major criteria that include good corporate governance, public services and good staff relations.

However, environmental protection and respect for public opinion were the two areas where they scored lower marks.

Besides, the university students indicate that they can least tolerate companies laying off their staff.

As to other things that will cause them to have bad feelings towards companies, they include: damage of the environment, acting against public opinion, ignorance of public services and poor corporate governance.

MTRC has a motto of "striving to be the safest and most reliable metro railway in the world", but a motto alone would not be enough, said Maggie So, its external affairs manager.

"Take a string of train accidents late last year for instance. They caused inconvenience to the commuters and made them worry if they could go to work on time. The accidents prompted us to work harder with our repair and maintenance services," she told the award ceremony at the University of Hong Kong yesterday.

"As a railway company, we have also received a lot of complaints about noise. To improve the problem, we have tried different mechanical parts and train designs to minimize the impact."

Highlighting the importance of communication with customers, she said the people's need has changed significantly over the years.

"MTR has become a part of people's daily lives. Over the past few years, there are more art exhibitions held inside the stations, where there are i-stations and coffee shops for people to browse the Internet and relax."

On the same occasion, Jane Lau, public affairs director of CLP Holdings, said the company had been working very hard in the areas of social service by encouraging its staff to take part in volunteer services.

"In minimizing pollution to the environment, we have made more use of nuclear power and natural gases but less coal for power generation," she said.

"Our company maintains a high degree of transparency with regard to disclosures of financial returns. We also communicate well with our customers, green groups, opinion groups and political parties."

Green Power Chief Executive Man Chi-sum, a guest of the ceremony, said it was a bit surprising that two banks were ranked among the top five although their scope of business had nothing to do with environmental protection.

"I guess the reason is the two banks, apart from scoring high marks in public service, have done nothing to harm the environment."

(HK Edition 03/30/2005 page3)