In the past couple of years, we continue to make good progress towards meeting our sustainability goals despite the Covid pandemic.
Our Planet
We are committed to playing our part in directly reducing our carbon emissions. In the calendar year 2021, the Group's carbon emissions on a like-for-like basis were 22% lower compared with the base year of 2019, while carbon intensity was 33% lower, moving a step further towards our target of 50% reduction by 2025. Overall, the Group's total carbon emissions were reduced by 2% year-on-year despite the emissions in 2020 being subdued due to lower levels of activities caused by Covid restrictions.
Total energy consumption increased by 19% year-on-year and by 2% compared with 2019 as a result of additional emissions from five newly acquired businesses in the last two years. However, energy intensity was reduced by 22% year-on-year.
During the year ended 31 March 2022, we also made following progress:
- Completed phase 1 of solar panels project at the Sri Lanka site. This is now operational and contributing to renewable energy capacity;
- Conducted energy audits at several sites; energy saving opportunities were identified and are now being implemented;
- Increased hybrid and fully electric vehicles in our car fleet to 26% from 19%;
- Increased the percentage of Group revenue generated by operations with a ISO 14001 accreditation from 61% to 63%.
Our People
We aim to provide a clean, healthy and safe working environment to our employees. In the calendar year 2021, we conducted over 5,500 hours of health & safety training and increased the health & safety representatives from 90 to over 120, giving it a representative to employee ratio of 1:38 (CY2020: 1:52).
The number of lost time incidents remain low at 19 in the financial year 2022 (FY2021: 15). The lost time incident frequency rate increased slightly compared with the Covid year of FY2021 but remained flat compared with FY2020, which was more representative of a normal year.
We’ve also made good progress on gender diversity. As at 31 March 2022, the proportion of female representatives in the Group’s executive management and its direct reports increased to 20% (FY2021: 15%) and as a proportion of Group-wide operational senior management increased to 36% (FY2021: 18%).
The percentage of employees that work in operations with ISO 45001 accreditation was lower due to the dilutive effect of the newly acquired businesses, which usually do not have the accreditation. We have set an ambitious target to increase the percentage of employees covered by ISO 45001 to 80% across the Group. A number of manufacturing sites have initiated or are going through the certification process in 2022.
Our Products
During the financial year 2022, we conducted a Group-wide supplier audit which covered the key suppliers of each operating business, equivalent to 62% of the Group’s materials spend in the year. The areas surveyed included environment, people and labour, health & safety, and quality and governance. A majority of the surveyed suppliers were compliant with the Group’s Supplier Code of Conduct. A small number of non-compliant suppliers were also identified and required actions to achieve compliance were communicated.
The quality of our products is monitored and ensured through the widespread adoption of ISO 9001. As at 31 December 2021, 95% of the Group’s products, measured by revenue, were manufactured under the ISO 9001 accredited system (31 December 2020: 88%).