ESG implementation in Vietnam’s modern retail distribution system: From compliance to capability

Abstract

This study examines the implementation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices in Vietnam’s modern retail distribution system using a 2025 nationwide survey with 3,043 valid responses from four actor groups: distributor enterprises, shopping malls and retail centers, supermarkets, and convenience stores. Treating the published survey tabulations as a policy-oriented baseline, the study applies descriptive comparison, inference from aggregated tables, and effect-size interpretation to evaluate ESG adoption patterns. The findings reveal a clear capability gradient across actor types: social formalization is nearly universal, governance mechanisms are widespread but uneven in depth, while environmental measurement and disclosure remain the least developed dimensions. Distributor enterprises represent the most pronounced lagging group, whereas supermarkets show the most balanced ESG implementation and convenience stores perform relatively well in standardized operational routines. Chi-square tests based on published counts indicate statistically significant actor-type differences across most operational ESG indicators, particularly in environmental training, energy tracking, recycling, and water monitoring. The study concludes that Vietnam’s retail ESG transition reflects a shift from compliance toward capability development and proposes a tiered policy and managerial framework to strengthen the country’s emerging green distribution system.

Keywords: ESG, retail distribution, green distribution system, sustainability reporting, modern retail.

1. Introduction

Vietnam’s green growth and net-zero commitments increasingly require credible ESG information and operational change not only in manufacturing and energy but also in retail distribution, which shapes consumer choice, supplier selection, packaging flows, waste generation, cold-chain energy use, and logistics practices at scale. The sector therefore sits at the intersection of sustainable consumption, supply-chain governance, and domestic trade modernization.

Policy relevance is high. Vietnam has adopted a national green growth strategy and a domestic trade development strategy that explicitly call for greener and more modern distribution systems (Prime Minister of Vietnam, 2021a, 2021b). Yet evidence on ESG implementation in retail distribution has remained fragmented, especially for operational practices at facility level.

This study addresses that gap by analyzing the 2025 national survey conducted under the authority of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The survey is especially valuable because it captures four distinct actor types within the modern retail ecosystem rather than treating retail as a homogeneous sector. This allows the study to ask not only whether ESG practices exist, but also where implementation capability is concentrated and where bottlenecks remain.

This study addresses four research questions (RQs):

RQ1: What is the prevalence of ESG practices across the E, S, and G pillars among Vietnam’s modern retail distribution actors in 2025?

RQ2: How do ESG practices differ by actor type and what do these differences imply about capability gaps within the distribution system?

RQ3: Is there evidence of a governance-first or compliance-first pattern in which formal policies spread more quickly than quantified environmental measurement and disclosure?

RQ4: Which actor-type gaps are largest and therefore most actionable for policy design, green distribution standards, and ESG capacity-building?

The working hypotheses are as follows. H1: downstream consumer-facing formats (shopping malls and retail centers, supermarkets, and convenience stores) exhibit higher ESG implementation rates than distributor enterprises because they face stronger visibility, branding, and standardization pressures. H2: governance and social formalization diffuse faster than quantified environmental disclosure where data capability is limited. H3: actor-type differences are largest in operational environmental indicators and materially smaller in labor formalization indicators.

2. Literature review

Global ESG and sustainability reporting has moved from fragmented voluntary disclosure toward more standardized architectures. IFRS S1 establishes a global baseline for sustainability-related financial disclosures organized around governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets (IFRS Foundation, 2023). In parallel, the GRI Standards remain the most widely used framework for reporting organizational impacts on the economy, environment, and society (Global Reporting Initiative, 2021). For supply-chain conduct and responsible business behavior more broadly, the OECD due diligence framework provides a risk-based approach that spans environmental, labor, consumer, governance, and anti-corruption issues (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2018).

The economic relevance of ESG has also been widely debated in the literature. Research suggests that sustainability performance on material issues can be associated with stronger organizational outcomes and that the relationship between ESG and financial performance is often positive or neutral rather than systematically negative (Eccles et al., 2014; Friede et al., 2015; Khan et al., 2016). Climate-risk disclosure has also become more salient for investors and lenders (Krueger et al., 2020).

At the same time, the literature warns against equating formal ESG adoption with substantive performance. ESG ratings can diverge sharply because of differences in scope, measurement, and weighting (Berg et al., 2022). This matters for retail because many reported practices involve processes, systems, and policies rather than outcome metrics. In sectors such as retail distribution, a useful analytical distinction is therefore between ESG compliance, ESG capability, and ESG performance.

Retail-sector sustainability research further highlights the importance of operational indicators—energy efficiency, refrigeration, waste handling, packaging, logistics, labor practices, and data governance—because retail facilities are both consumption-facing and infrastructure-intensive nodes. Modern retail can also diffuse sustainability norms upstream by imposing environmental and social requirements on suppliers. For a country such as Vietnam, where modern retail formats are expanding but still coexist with heterogeneous distribution structures, capability differences across actor types are likely to be central.

3. Data and methods

3.1. Dataset and governance

The study uses the official 2025 survey on ESG implementation at retail distribution establishments in Vietnam. According to the summary report, the survey was conducted under the authority of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and implemented through structured questionnaires differentiated by actor type (Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam [MOIT], 2025).

3.2. Sampling frame and scope

The sample contains 3,043 valid responses from four actor types: 75 distributor enterprises, 100 shopping malls and retail centers, 1,018 supermarkets, and 1,850 convenience stores. The survey covers all major urban retail centers but is geographically concentrated in leading metropolitan areas, particularly Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Accordingly, the evidence should be interpreted primarily as describing the surveyed modern retail footprint rather than the full national population of all retail establishments.

3.3. Measure

The questionnaires include environmental items (training, energy and water monitoring, recycling, environmental reporting, supplier standards), social items (labor contracts, wages, occupational safety, diversity, grievance and consumer-related issues), and governance items (leadership commitment, ethics codes, stakeholder channels, disclosure, and internal control structures). Most published variables are categorical and reported as shares of each actor type.

3.4. Analytical strategy

Because unit-record microdata and final survey weights are not available in the attached materials, this paper uses a two-step strategy. First, it synthesizes published descriptive statistics from the survey summary and draft tables. Second, for selected binary indicators it reconstructs approximate cell counts from published percentages and valid sample sizes in order to perform chi-square tests and compute Cramér’s V as an effect-size measure. These tests do not replace full design-based survey inference, but they are sufficient to identify where differences are likely to be substantively large versus merely statistically detectable.

3.5. Interpretation principle

Throughout the paper, results are interpreted as evidence of relative implementation capability, not as a direct measure of underlying environmental or social outcomes. This distinction is important because having a policy, a reporting line, or a monitoring system is not the same as achieving lower emissions, less waste, or better labor outcomes.

4. Results

4.1. Sample structure and inferential scope

The 3,043 valid responses are heavily concentrated in consumer-facing modern retail formats: convenience stores account for 60.8% of the achieved sample, supermarkets 33.5%, shopping malls 3.3%, and distributor enterprises only 2.5%. The geographic concentration of the sample is also notable, with Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi together accounting for a majority of observations in the summary report. These features matter analytically: the survey offers unusually rich visibility into the organized modern retail channel, but it is not a balanced census of all retail distribution nodes in Vietnam.

4.2. A three-speed ESG structure

A first reading of the published tables reveals a three-speed pattern rather than a uniform sectoral profile. Social formalization is the most mature pillar, governance mechanisms occupy an intermediate position, and environmental capability is the most uneven dimension. This stratification is visible across all actor types and strongly supports the interpretation that Vietnam’s retail sector is moving from formal compliance toward operational capability in an uneven manner.

4.3. Social pillar

High formalization, low dispersion. Social indicators are the most standardized across the sample. Full labor contracts are reported by 96.0% of distributor enterprises, 100.0% of shopping malls and retail centers, 99.9% of supermarkets, and 99.8% of convenience stores. Stakeholder grievance mechanisms are similarly widespread, ranging from 92.0% among distributor enterprises to 100.0% among shopping malls and retail centers. This suggests that minimum labor and stakeholder-management systems have become deeply institutionalized in Vietnam’s modern retail channel. However, because these shares are already very high, the social pillar provides limited discrimination among actor types and should not be overinterpreted as evidence that broader social performance problems have been solved.

4.4. Governance pillar

Broader diffusion than depth. Governance results are stronger than environmental results but more uneven than the social pillar. Codes of conduct or ethics are reported by 33.3% of distributor enterprises, 78.4% of supermarkets, 91.1% of convenience stores, and 100.0% of shopping malls and retail centers. This reveals that governance formalization has diffused widely in consumer-facing formats but remains incomplete in midstream distribution enterprises. The contrast between the near-universality of grievance mechanisms and the weaker prevalence of formal ethics codes among distributor enterprises suggests that basic stakeholder channels may be easier to establish than organization-wide governance systems embedded in management routines.

4.5. Environmental pillar

The largest capability gap. Environmental indicators show the largest inter-actor variation by a wide margin. The share reporting that at least half of staff receive environmental policy training is 6.7% for distributor enterprises, 42.0% for shopping malls and retail centers, 90.9% for supermarkets, and 99.6% for convenience stores. Recycling or reuse of materials is reported by only 8.0% of distributor enterprises, compared with 79.0% of shopping malls and retail centers, 95.0% of supermarkets, and 63.3% of convenience stores. Tracking total energy consumption is reported by 16.0% of distributor enterprises, 90.0% of shopping malls and retail centers, 77.5% of supermarkets, and 98.9% of convenience stores. Water-input monitoring shows the same pattern, ranging from 44.0% in distributor enterprises to roughly 90% in the three downstream formats. These results identify environmental data systems and operational routines, not social compliance, as the main fault line in the sector.

4.6. Environmental disclosure intensity

The gap becomes even sharper when the analysis shifts from operational routines to quantified environmental reporting. Distributor enterprises report any greenhouse-gas disclosure at 12.0%, wastewater reporting at 4.0%, and waste reporting at 12.0%. By contrast, supermarkets report 97.4%, 97.9%, and 99.3% respectively, while shopping malls and retail centers report 73.0%, 90.0%, and 98.0%. This is a crucial finding. It shows that the sector’s main divide is not simply whether organizations claim commitment to ESG, but whether they possess the internal systems needed to convert environmental issues into measurable, disclosable information.

4.7. Statistical significance and substantive magnitude

Approximate chi-square tests reconstructed from published counts confirm statistically significant actor-type differences for all selected indicators, but the substantive magnitudes vary sharply. Environmental policy training shows an extremely large effect (χ² ≈ 1304.4, p < .001, Cramér’s V = .655). Energy tracking (V = .499), recycling/reuse (V = .406), and water-input tracking (V = .378) also show moderate-to-large differences. Governance formalization through ethics codes is lower but still substantively meaningful (V = .299). By contrast, full labor contracts (V = .117) and stakeholder grievance mechanisms (V = .075) show only small effect sizes despite statistical significance, indicating that high sample size and near-universal adoption drive the p-values more than true structural divergence. The evidence therefore strongly supports H3: the sharpest differences are environmental, not social.

4.8. Actor-specific ESG profiles

The published evidence supports a differentiated characterization of actor types. Distributor enterprises  are the clearest lagging group and appears to be the principal midstream bottleneck in ESG diffusion. Supermarkets are the most balanced actor type, combining high rates of environmental routines, high disclosure intensity, and relatively strong governance formalization. Convenience stores perform exceptionally well on standardized operational routines such as staff training and resource tracking, which is consistent with chain-based operating models, although the currently available tables provide less visibility into outcome disclosure for this group. Shopping malls and retail centers are also strong on many environmental and governance items, but the underlying summary report indicates nonresponse in some internal-control and disclosure-related items, suggesting that apparent strength should be interpreted with some caution.

4.9. A capability staircase in modern retail

Taken together, the evidence is best interpreted as a capability staircase. Social compliance has already become sectoral infrastructure. Governance formalization has expanded but remains uneven in codified depth. Environmental capability is the true frontier, with substantial stratification across organizational forms. This pattern strongly supports H1 and H2 and suggests that Vietnam’s modern retail ESG transition is being driven by visibility, standardization, and data capability more than by uniform regulatory compliance alone.

Table 1. Achieved sample by actor type

Source: Author’s synthesis from the 2025 survey summary and draft article tables.

Table 2. Selected ESG implementation indicators by actor type (%)

Source: Author’s synthesis from published survey tabulations.

Table 3. Environmental disclosure intensity (% reporting any disclosure)

Source: Author’s synthesis from published survey tabulations.

Table 4. Reconstructed significance tests for selected indicators

Note. Statistics are reconstructed from published percentages and valid sample sizes. They should be interpreted as approximate published-table inference rather than design-based survey estimates.

5. Discussion and conclusion

5.1. From compliance to capability

The central contribution of the survey is not merely to show that ESG adoption is uneven; it is to identify where the unevenness lies. The weakest dimension is not social formalization, and it is not the existence of broad governance channels in general. It is the operational capability to measure, manage, and disclose environmental impacts. This distinction matters theoretically because it separates symbolic ESG adoption from routinized capability. In other words, the main transition challenge for Vietnam’s retail system is not whether firms recognize ESG as a concept, but whether they can translate ESG into measurable processes embedded in everyday operations.

5.2. Why downstream formats lead

The results are consistent with a visibility-capability explanation. Consumer-facing formats such as supermarkets, shopping malls, and convenience-store chains face stronger reputational pressure, more standardized operating procedures, and in many cases stronger parent-company governance systems. These characteristics make it easier to diffuse training, monitoring, and disclosure routines. Distributor enterprises, by contrast, sit in a less visible but systemically important midstream position. Because it is less exposed to consumers but highly consequential for logistics and supply-chain coordination, it can become the hidden weak link in green distribution if policy design treats all retail actors as if they faced the same incentives and capacities.

5.3. A more nuanced reading of governance

The findings also caution against treating the governance pillar as uniformly strong. Governance appears stronger than environmental implementation, but even here the pattern is layered. Basic grievance mechanisms are widespread, while codified ethics and disclosure structures are more uneven. This suggests that low-cost or externally expected governance devices may diffuse relatively quickly, whereas governance practices that require internal managerial discipline, documentation, and board-level integration spread more slowly.

5.4. Policy implications

The results support a tiered policy strategy rather than a uniform mandate. First, Vietnam should prioritize actor-specific ESG standards within its emerging green distribution framework. Distributor enterprises  should be the primary target for environmental capability-building, especially training, waste accounting, water tracking, and emissions-related reporting. Second, supermarkets and shopping malls can serve as demonstration and anchoring platforms for sectoral standards because they already exhibit higher levels of operational maturity. Third, ESG reporting requirements should be sequenced: simple monitoring and internal controls should precede more demanding disclosure obligations for lower-capacity actors. Fourth, the government should consider building a shared ESG data infrastructure or reporting utility for the distribution sector, thereby reducing compliance costs and improving comparability across firms.

5.5. Managerial implications

For firms, the findings imply that ESG should be integrated into operating systems rather than treated as an external communications exercise. Distributor enterprises need basic environmental management architecture: training programs, measurable resource-use tracking, and standardized reporting templates. Supermarkets and convenience-store chains should move beyond routine compliance toward performance management, using energy, water, waste, and supplier data to drive efficiency gains. Shopping malls should strengthen internal transparency and governance disclosure to match their operational strengths. Across all actor types, supplier governance is likely to be a high-leverage lever because large retail nodes can diffuse ESG expectations upstream to manufacturers and logistics partners.

5.6. Limitations

Several limitations should be recognized. First, the available evidence is based on published tables rather than unit-record microdata, which constrains multivariate modeling and formal survey-weighted inference. Second, the geographic concentration of the sample in major cities means that the results likely overrepresent the more organized end of Vietnam’s retail system. Third, most indicators capture practices and self-reported systems rather than verified performance outcomes. Fourth, comparability across actor types is affected by missing items and nonresponse for some modules. These limitations do not invalidate the study’s findings, but they do imply that the results should be interpreted as a robust policy baseline rather than a final causal account.

5.7. Future research

Three extensions would substantially deepen the evidence base. The first is to construct a sector-specific ESG capability index using item-level survey data. The second is to link that capability index to outcomes such as energy costs, access to finance, logistics efficiency, and consumer trust. The third is to evaluate whether future policy interventions - green distribution standards, green credit incentives, or mandatory disclosure thresholds - improve capability in lower-performing actor groups, especially distributor enterprises.

5.8. Conclusion

The 2025 national survey provides the strongest currently available empirical baseline on ESG implementation in Vietnam’s modern retail distribution system. Its most important message is not that ESG is absent, but that implementation is stratified. Social compliance is broadly institutionalized. Governance mechanisms are present but uneven in codified depth. Environmental capability is the main frontier and the main divide. Vietnam’s green distribution agenda will therefore be strengthened not by generic ESG rhetoric alone, but by actor-specific capability-building, sequenced disclosure, and stronger data systems that convert intention into measurable practice.

References:

Berg, F., Kölbel, J. F., & Rigobon, R. (2022). Aggregate confusion: The divergence of ESG ratings. Review of Finance, 26(6), 1315–1344. https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfac033

Eccles, R. G., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). The impact of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Management Science, 60(11), 2835–2857. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1984

Friede, G., Busch, T., & Bassen, A. (2015). ESG and financial performance: Aggregated evidence from more than 2,000 empirical studies. Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, 5(4), 210–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2015.1118917

Global Reporting Initiative. (2021). GRI 1: Foundation 2021. https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/

IFRS Foundation. (2023). IFRS S1: General requirements for disclosure of sustainability-related financial information. https://www.ifrs.org/issued-standards/ifrs-sustainability-standards-navigator/ifrs-s1-general-requirements/

Khan, M., Serafeim, G., & Yoon, A. (2016). Corporate sustainability: First evidence on materiality. The Accounting Review, 91(6), 1697–1724. https://doi.org/10.2308/accr-51383

Krueger, P., Sautner, Z., & Starks, L. T. (2020). The importance of climate risk for institutional investors. Review of Financial Studies, 33(3), 1067–1111. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhz137

Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam. (2025). Survey and assessment of ESG practice implementation at retail distribution establishments in Vietnam in 2025 [Research report]. Domestic Market Supervision and Development Agency.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2018). OECD due diligence guidance for responsible business conduct. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/44dfeca9-en

Prime Minister of Vietnam. (2021a). Decision No. 1163/QĐ-TTg approving the strategy on development of domestic trade through 2030, with a vision to 2045. Government Portal. https://vanban.chinhphu.vn/default.aspx?docid=203611&pageid=27160

Prime Minister of Vietnam. (2021b). Decision No. 1658/QĐ-TTg approving the national green growth strategy for 2021–2030, with a vision to 2050. Government Portal. https://vanban.chinhphu.vn/?docid=204226&pageid=27160

Thực tiễn triển khai ESG trong hệ thống bán lẻ hiện đại tại Việt Nam: Từ tuân thủ đến nâng cao năng lực

Bui Nguyen Anh Tuan¹ 

Nguyen Thi Hong¹

Le Thu Hang²

Ha Xuan Binh³

Lam Hoang⁴

¹Ministry of Industry and Trade of Viet Nam

²Foreign Trade University

³Thuongmai University

⁴LFAY

Tóm tắt:

Nghiên cứu này phân tích việc triển khai các thực hành môi trường, xã hội và quản trị (ESG) trong hệ thống phân phối bán lẻ hiện đại tại Việt Nam, dựa trên bộ dữ liệu khảo sát toàn quốc năm 2025 với 3.043 phản hồi hợp lệ từ bốn nhóm đối tượng chính: doanh nghiệp phân phối, trung tâm thương mại và trung tâm bán lẻ, siêu thị và cửa hàng tiện lợi. Sử dụng các bảng tổng hợp kết quả khảo sát đã công bố như một cơ sở dữ liệu định hướng chính sách, nghiên cứu áp dụng phương pháp so sánh mô tả, suy luận từ bảng dữ liệu tổng hợp và diễn giải kích thước hiệu ứng để đánh giá mức độ triển khai ESG giữa các nhóm đối tượng chính. Kết quả cho thấy tồn tại một “bậc thang năng lực” rõ rệt giữa các loại hình chủ thể. Các thực hành thuộc trụ cột xã hội đã được thể chế hóa gần như phổ biến; các cơ chế quản trị được triển khai tương đối rộng rãi nhưng còn khác biệt về chiều sâu; trong khi đó, đo lường và công bố thông tin môi trường vẫn là khía cạnh phát triển chậm nhất. Nhóm doanh nghiệp phân phối là nhóm có mức độ triển khai thấp nhất, trong khi các siêu thị thể hiện sự cân bằng tốt hơn giữa các trụ cột ESG, còn các cửa hàng tiện lợi nổi bật ở việc chuẩn hóa các quy trình vận hành. Kiểm định Chi-square dựa trên số liệu tổng hợp cho thấy sự khác biệt có ý nghĩa thống kê giữa các loại hình tác nhân đối với phần lớn các chỉ báo ESG vận hành, đặc biệt ở các nội dung như đào tạo về môi trường, theo dõi tiêu thụ năng lượng, tái chế và giám sát sử dụng nước. Nghiên cứu cho rằng quá trình chuyển đổi ESG trong lĩnh vực bán lẻ tại Việt Nam nên được hiểu là sự chuyển dịch từ “tuân thủ” sang “nâng cao năng lực”, thay vì chỉ là khoảng cách về mức độ tuân thủ. Trên cơ sở đó, nghiên cứu đề xuất một khung chính sách và quản trị theo cấp độ nhằm thúc đẩy sự phát triển của hệ thống phân phối xanh tại Việt Nam.

Từ khóa: ESG, phân phối bán lẻ, hệ thống phân phối xanh, báo cáo bền vững, bán lẻ hiện đại.