From our
Department Heads
Mark Harper
This year, we met challenges, and made achievements and important movements towards our SwireTHRIVE commitments. We continued to make progress on several of our goals, with an overall reduction in scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, as well as similar progress against our water and waste targets. We completed a full inventory of our scope 3 emissions and assessed the physical climate risks to our assets. As a result of these efforts, we saw improvements in a number of ESG ratings including CDP and the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Index.
During 2023, we will build on our 2030 decarbonisation plans by developing a carbon transition action plan to achieve net zero by 2050. We will continue to innovate and invest in technologies and solutions to meet our ambitious commitments, and transparently report on our progress.
Midway through 2022, I took over the leadership of our sustainable development strategy and performance as Group Head of Sustainability. Despite the challenging operating environment, I am proud of the work done by my colleagues across the Group and continue to be energised by Swire’s ongoing commitment to Sustainability. The agreement to triail the implementation of internal carbon pricing in 2023, is testament to the opportunity our senior management see to further embed sustainability into the core functions of our businesses.
As significant as COVID-19 has been, climate change presents another level of environmental, social and economic challenges. All must embrace ambition, ingenuity and collaboration to drive progress towards the achieving the global goals. It will not be easy, but I remain optimistic that collectively we can deliver on our commitments for the future.
Ajay Manissery Konchery
As we come out of COVID-19, our business and workforce look significantly different to when we started our official D&I journey in 2019. We also have new leadership with my appointment as the Group Head of Diversity and Inclusion. Yet our commitment to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace remains unwavering.
Data continues to underpin our approach to measuring success. We conducted our second group-wide D&I survey in Hong Kong and found our inclusion score increased by 7%. We also participated in external indices for gender, ethnic and disability inclusion to benchmark our progress, and featured in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index for the second consecutive time.
We also recognise that as our business evolves so must our approach to D&I. That’s why to further drive towards gender equality, we set an additional target to achieve 30% of women on our board by 2024.
This year, we look forward to continuing advocating not just for women but for everyone as we build an inclusive and supportive working environment for all.
Wai Ching Cheung
Health and safety is a top priority for us as we strive towards our aspirational goal of achieving zero harm. This objective underpins our approach to safety management.
Our commitment to protecting the health of our stakeholders has remained steadfast, so we adapted by introducing effective mitigations while the business was affected by COVID-19. We have worked hard to keep the company and all with whom we do business safe and healthy. These efforts have strengthened our business resilience and resulted in an increased focus on staff wellbeing.
Our risk governance includes a risk forum which oversees both human resources and health and safety. This has helped us to identify emerging risk issues and opportunities in these two interrelated areas.
We have placed particular focus on introducing technology to help enhance our safety capabilities and culture. This includes the use of AI and wearable technology.
We recognise the importance of ensuring contractor safety. This is reflected in monitoring and reporting on contractor safety programmes as we continue to adopt a more holistic and integrated approach to our safety strategy.
As we look forward, we are committed to continuously improving safety training throughout the company since we believe this is a fundamental component to building a sustainable safety culture. Our strong commitment to health and safety forms a key part of our employee proposition and benefits all of our stakeholders.
Tina Chan
With social distancing measures eased towards the end of 2022, the fast onset fifth wave of COVID-19 at the start of the year seems to be a distant memory. During that challenging time, Swire Trust swiftly injected an additional HK$15.5 million through its TrustTomorrow initiative. This funding provided essential services that vulnerable groups have been unable to access, helping them retain a level of well-being in these challenging times.
As our ongoing TrustTomorrow projects gain momentum, it is a delight to see them starting to bear fruit. To date, over HK$124 million has been distributed to over 100 partner organisations to allow them to create impact in the areas of Education, Marine Conservation, the Arts, as well as pandemic relief.
Internally, we continued to engage our staff to our NGO partners through various activities, such as Lunch & Learns, as well as new mentorship programme for underprivileged youth. Over 1,000 colleagues participated in 54 community activities to lend their support. It is by joining efforts within and outside of the group that we will be able to create a better society together.