Sustainability

Sustainability is embedded in our corporate strategy and engrained in our organisational culture. This principle also underpins our business objectives and actions to promote good governance and business processes in our day-to-day operations. Under the direction of the Board, the Group’s sustainability policies and practices for our four material ESG aspects have been formulated and aligned with our desired standards.

The primary aim of the Board is to create, enhance and deliver long-term sustainable positive returns for our shareholders and this sets as the key objective for all our business units. We believe acting sustainably is equally important when we realise the full potential of our two core pillars of business that meets the aspirations of the broader stakeholder community.

ESG is integrated throughout our Group’s business and sustainability is our long-term development goal as we continue to optimize our business to be resilient, efficient, and innovative. Sustainability is also a critical component in all our decision making since it is highly important for all our stakeholders.

The Group takes a pragmatic approach and through our conscious and deliberate participation in a variety of initial sustainable positives and activities, the Group aims to continuously improve on our sustainable performance in a manner that is accountable to all our stakeholders.

Environmental Performance

The Group is committed to pursue a high standard of environmental management throughout its operations. We strive for continual improvement of environmental performance, the efficient use of resources, and the minimisation or prevention of pollution.

The Group also seeks to comply with applicable environmental laws, regulations and mandatory standards locally or to the relevant country. The Group will continue to target to minimise or prevent adverse environmental impacts resulting from its operations, products and services.

Furthermore, the Group has adopted various practices to deal with environmental protection, the most important one is the continuous investment in facilities featuring the latest technology, leading to reduced energy consumption and gaseous emissions, thus improving air quality.

Air and Greenhouse Emissions

The Group constantly aims to carry out its business activity in line with the principles of sustainable growth and thus minimise its carbon dioxide contribution to the environment. Our actions to stabilise and/or minimise carbon emissions are of substantial importance because they support its operational efficiency. By doing so, the Group monitors carbon emissions, on a monthly basis and implements timely corrective actions in order to ensure that its annual carbon dioxide emissions are in line with the legal restrictions and, most importantly, are kept at the lowest possible level.

Hazardous and Non-hazardous Waste

It is embedded in our Group’s environmental policy that we manage our hazardous and non-hazardous wastes in a sustainable way. We always aim to reduce waste output and maximise the use of recycling and reuse and recovery methods, target to bring the environment impacts to its minimum. In order to fulfil this intention, the plants selected under the Building Construction Materials sector have developed and applied relevant practices, which are included under the ISO 14001 environmental management system.

Use of Resources

The Group is committed to actively promote the efficient use of resources including energy usage, water conservations and the efficient use of raw materials into our operations. Our approach is continuing to implement effective energy allocation and utilisation, reducing energy and resources wastages.

We also implement green manufacturing approach for our ready mixed concrete operation in which we aim to maximise our resources efficiency and actively recycle waste water during its production process. Furthermore, we continue to conduct periodic energy audit for our plants in order for us to formulate and adopt measures on energy conservation and emission reduction so we can consume the energy in a more efficient and effective manners. As a sustainable green manufacturer – we will continue to research, develop, or utilize technologies and practices to lessen our impact on the environment.

The Environment and Natural Resources

The Group is committed to pursue a high standard of environmental management throughout its operations and strive for continual improvement of environmental performance. The Group also seeks to comply with applicable environmental laws, regulations and mandatory standards locally or to the relevant country. The Group will continue to target to minimise or prevent adverse environmental impacts resulting from its operations, products and services. By integrating green manufacturing and green concept in our daily operations, the Group will make sure the environmental impacts will be at its lowest and continue to strive to be a responsible global citizen.

Climate Change

Climate change is one of the most important issues the world faces today and the Group recognizes its commitment to work towards a better sustainable environment and strives to address and mitigate any climate change related issues and challenges.

Our approach is actively reducing climate-related physical risks to our operations and supply chain, mitigating transition risks and leveraging opportunities. We continue to make every effort in lowering carbon output and improves the efficiency of our operations and reduce related emissions. The Group also recognizes that water is a scarce resource and that future supplies will be affected by population growth and climate change. The Group is committed to manage our water use responsibly and implements water management plan, reduce usage and improve its discharge quality.

Employment and Labour Practices

The Group is committed to foster the well-being of our employee and aims to provide them with a safe and healthy workplace environment. Recognising the value of our people’s contribution to our business evolution and future growth, we are committed to the maintenance of labour peace and complied with the relevant laws and regulation relating to compensation and dismissal, recruitment and promotion, working hours, rest period, equal opportunity, diversity and anti-discrimination.

The Group is committed to encouraging diversity in the workplace and the provision of a work environment that is free from discrimination and promotes equal opportunity for all; and improving diversity – in particular – the number of females in leadership and other traditionally male dominated roles within the business.

Health and Safety

Human resource is the Group’s most important asset and the foundation of the Group’s future development and success. The Group believes that workplace health and safety of our employees is an important material aspect due to the nature of our operations. The Group also aims at achieving a high level of occupational health and safety performance and promoting and supporting the safety culture in order to provide healthy and safe working conditions for all of our employees. All injuries, occupational illnesses and incidents are preventable and any harm to our employee through their work activities is unacceptable.

The Group’s aim is to educate our employees, make them focus on the importance of safety in all of our business activities and make workplace health and safety becomes everyone’s accountability. In particularly, we encourage our employees to actively take part in improving our safety standards through various initiative such as monthly safety meetings.

The Group adheres to the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance (Cap. 509 of the Laws of Hong Kong). The Group ensures our commitments in maintaining workplace health and safety are well conveyed among all employees within the Group.

Development and Training

The Group encourages our employees to develop and advance their careers in our company. We also actively promote continuous learning initiatives and develop a range of training programs for our employees. The offering of trainings comprised of educational events and course on most various topics related to job-specific as well as practices at the workplace. Apart from that, the group provides induction training and continuous internal training for employees at all levels in the hope of helping them adapt to the ever-changing business environment through life-long learning.

Labour Standards

The Group is committed to respecting the labour and human rights of all our employees. The Group insists on application of human rights in all its operations and works towards eliminating any human rights violating practices from the Group’s as well as its subcontractors’ and suppliers’ operating procedures. We regard every employee and everyone involved in the manufacturing of our products to have the right to be treated well and with respect by supervisors, subordinates and colleagues. We do not accept discrimination in any form. We do not condone or tolerate the use of child labour or forced or compulsory labour in any of our operations now in any such operations of our subcontractors that are related to our products.

The Group strictly complies with the applicable laws and regulations on employment, child and forced labour practices which include the Employment Ordinance in Hong Kong, and the Labour Law, Labour Contract Law on this issue. During the reporting period, the Group has not experienced any non-compliance involving child or forced labour.

The Group has set some preventive measures on child and forced labour employment such as carrying out the candidates screening in recruitment process and there is an opinion box with security for employees gathering their opinions in confidential way and only authorized persons are allowed to access the opinion box.

Furthermore, the Group can eliminate such practices through some communication channels including staff appraisal meetings, department meetings, intranet and email communications and seminars, workshops and trainings.

Supply Chain Management

The Group is committed to upholding high standards of business integrity, honesty and transparency in its business dealings. The Group is also committed to manage and continue to strengthen our supply chain in a socially and environmentally responsible manner and source from suppliers that are putting environmental and ethical performance as priority.

The Group persists in establishing long term strategic partnership with suppliers which have good reputations and provide quality products and services.

For each of our businesses, we have established a checklist to assess the suitability of suppliers which include items such as pricing, technical capability, quality of raw materials, location, delivery time and services etc. On top of this, we conduct partnership evaluation for our key suppliers and subcontractors on the aspects of quality, environmental and occupational safety. Partnered suppliers and subcontractors of the key processes are evaluated and approved by senior management and their performance is closely monitored with regular feedback from employees at workplace. This evaluation is conducted annually to keep track of the performance of our suppliers and contractors.

In addition, the Group is concerned about the environmental and social crisis along the supply chain, the group various operations proactively performs internal audits and conducts the outsourced quality test periodically to ensure the quality of the products and service performance from our suppliers so as to prevent delivery of sub-standard products for construction works. Furthermore, “Just-in-time” management strategy is also applied along with the supply chain to ensure “On-time deliver” of our products and services to customers to avoid any delay in customer’s construction process.

The Group also maintains a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with our customers that enable us to provide high-quality, sector-leading products and services and deliver engagement and positive experiences that are appropriate to local contexts.

Product Responsibility

The Group complies fully with the local laws, the international guidelines and industry standards applicable with its activity sectors in relation with the design and production of its products and the methods it employs for their promotion and marketing. The Group also places particular emphasis on the quality of its materials, products and applies innovative production processes that improve the quality, safety and environmental impacts of each product. We strive to apply the strict application of the procedures under the EN ISO 9001 Quality Management System in some of our core operations. Our commitment on innovative approach in manufacturing our products defines the level of the quality offered to our customers. In addition, the company has obtained the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Certificate for its products under our Building Construction Materials sector.

The Group strictly abides by the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486 of the Laws of Hong Kong) and keeps the personal information of stakeholders collected confidential. The employee handbook stipulates our guidelines on confidentiality and that the employees are obliged to ensure the safekeeping of confidential, trade secrets and sensitive information.

The Group is committed to collecting and using the customer data in a responsible, fair and equal manner, and all customer data can only be used for the purposes set out in the client contract. During the reporting period, the Group was not aware of non-compliance with laws and regulations relating to the infringement of personal privacy.

Anti-corruption

The Group’s principle is to conduct our operations in a lawful, ethical and professional manner and we are firmly committed to the prevention of corruption and bribery across all areas of our operations. The Group does not tolerate bribery and malpractice of any form including extortion, fraud and money laundering. All directors and staff are prohibited from soliciting, accepting or offering any bribe and are required to comply with the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance of Hong Kong. Our employees also receive regular anti- corruption and internal control training to reinforce their awareness.

The Group has implemented a whistle-blowing policy and the audit committee has the authority to conduct independent investigations into any complaints. The whistle-blowing policy provides a way for employees to report malpractices in the workplace to the appropriate person, and for the necessary follow up action to be taken on such a report. The supervision of the whistle-blowing policy is carried out by the Audit Committee.

Community Investment

The Group strongly believes that contributing to the community is very crucial while growing our business at the same time. During the reporting year, the Group continued to actively support meaningful activities in the community and donated to a number of organisations, charities and people in need. Our mission is to focus on the perceived needs of the society at the time, strived to contribute and bringing warmth and caring to the selected communities.