Approach
A Board Committee dedicated to Sustainability
We established the Organisation and Sustainability Committee (OSC) at Board level to ensure that sustainability was considered a critical priority. Chaired by U Ye Myint, one of our co-founders and vice-chairmen, the Committee is tasked to oversee the efficiency of our policies and strategy related to corporate governance, business ethics, and sustainability.
The Committee ensures that the management of environmental and social (E&S) risks is properly implemented across the Group, as ensuring the sustainability and acceptability of our operations is crucial. Our Code of Conduct includes various policies that pertain to social, human rights, and environmental topics. To enhance our management system, we asked an independent third party to assess our current practices and to provide us with actionable recommendations. Following their report, the Group reorganised its sustainability teams. As a result, in 2018, the IFC trained our people to reinforce their skills on E&S matters: 40+ individuals attended three workshops.
In 2019, the Committee discussed various policies and programs covering the following areas: childcare services, performance management, bullying and harassment, and mentoring. It also offered recommendations for the better structure of the Corporate Office to ensure its effectiveness.
Investing in projects that will benefit all our stakeholders
We consider the following factors when reviewing a project:
Our Board will only consider a project and make a decision if we can answer positively to the three questions above, as the project would then be aligned with our purpose. If we cannot answer positively to the questions but we still believe that the project is worth pursuing, we have to amend and update the project’s impact and financials to pass this scorecard. As we are mainly purpose-driven, we can accept a lower economic return on investment if it maximises the value created for our stakeholders or if it significantly helps to reduce the impact of our operations on the community and environment.
Building a sound approach to sustainability
To prosper, businesses have to develop a business approach that includes their key stakeholders. The better they can meet their expectations, the more likely they will be able to thrive, as this ensures alignment of their interests with their stakeholders’. In 2019, we decided to structure our approach to sustainability at the Group level.
We believe that as a result of this process, and with the disclosure of this report, we comply with the spirit of AA1000AS standards and with various other international standards related to non-financial reporting.
Our Materials Analysis
Out of our chosen 42 topics, we identified 17 issues that are material and critical both for our stakeholders and for Shwe Taung. Each issue pertains to a pillar of our strategy.
The result is our materiality analysis:
For more information, please refer to our 2019 Sustainability Report.