Hong Kong ESG Reporting Awards (HERA) recognize outstanding and distinguished Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) reports by listed and non-listed companies in Hong Kong and celebrate their best practices.
The Inaugural HERA 2018 awards presentation ceremony was successfully held on 20 September 2018. The Grand Award winners of the five categories: Best ESG Report, Excellence in GRI Report, Excellence in Sustainability Report for Non-listed Company, Excellence in Environmental Disclosure as well as Innovative Frontrunner Award, were announced and the recipients were honored at the HERA 2018 presentation ceremony.
At this juncture, ESG Newswire is running an award winner series to recognize the achievements of the award-winning companies in making positive impacts in different aspects of ESG criteria.
K. Wah Construction Materials (KWCM) has been bestowed three awards in HERA 2018: Excellence in Sustainability Report for Non-listed Company, Excellence in Environmental Disclosure and Innovative Frontrunner Award. We are very pleased to have Mr. Joseph Chee, the Managing Director of KWCM, to share with us their best practices that helped them achieve outstanding corporate sustainability and their views on how to overcome the grim ESG challenges ahead in the construction materials industry.
KWCM management receiving one of the three Grand Awards on Stage
Q: Please state the top three reasons why your company received this accolade?
A: Firstly, our corporate sustainability is well positioned in the context of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the perspective of value creation. Secondly, the content of our ESG report is comprehensive and the presentation is organized and appealing, including the story-telling approach so as to make the report more reader-friendly. Thirdly, our report contains a number of well-designed infographics to illustrate its sustainability impacts.
Q: What sustainability initiative would you like to highlight the most?
A: Since the publication of SDGs for 2030 through the joint efforts of the United Nations and other sustainability advocating institutes, we have already seen substantial changes in the way sustainability is practiced in our industry.
We are therefore committed to adopting the most important and applicable SDGs in our longer-term business strategies, those consistent with our four core sustainability drivers and other sustainability disclosure requirements and those that encompass the sustainability-related areas relevant to our daily operations. The materiality issues mentioned in the 3 x SDG stories are of interest to stakeholders, for example, the “Anderson Road” story highlights how the success of value chain and stakeholders management can maximize the positive measurable sustainability impacts on the community for more than half century.
Q: What are the areas that your company will continue to improve on an on-going basis?
A: Corporate sustainability is fundamental to our business approach, to create long-term value for our shareholders. KWCM achieves this by integrating ESG concerns into all its operations. To this end, we will keep reviewing our Value Creation Model against the increasing sustainability and ESG requirements from stakeholders. Therefore, the priority is setting meaningful objectives and targets with effective improvement programmes for addressing their concerns.
Q: What is the prevailing ESG challenge facing your company or your industry?
A: The construction materials industry is unique in the manufacturing sector; the associated supply chain has a relatively limited geographical coverage. We embody this uniqueness, as the majority of our operations are in China and our core product is cementitious – one of the industries in which the Chinese government has decided to encourage innovation to reduce excess supply, consolidate production capacity and enhance technology to ensure environmental improvements. As a result, our business operations are becoming more institution-driven and have different sustainability requirements. Environmental management aspects such as climate change are beginning to dominate and are becoming the key risk and management concerns.
Q: Any advice on how the challenge mentioned above can be dealt with?
A: On-going stakeholder engagement is essential. However, more important is the effectiveness of these activities with respect to our ESG strategies and associated programs’ objectives and targets. In this regard, we believe that improving ESG disclosure and management are important for properly communicating with stakeholders that our works are on track and good for community in the long run.
