CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT AS A TECH AND SUSTAINABILITYCENTRIC SOLUTION PROVIDER, WE ARE FUTURE-ORIENTED AND WELL POSITIONED TO CONTINUE ON OUR GROWTH PATH. MOREOVER, BY EMBEDDING TECHNOLOGY WITHIN OUR OWN OPERATIONS, WE ARE EQUIPPED WITH THE TOOLS TO BE MORE SUSTAINABLE AND TO DRIVE SHARED VALUE FOR OUR PEOPLE, COMMUNITIES AND PLANET. IN JUNE 2022, WE LAUNCHED OUR TWO-YEAR SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP (FY2022 - FY2024), OUTLINING A FOCUSED, GROUP-WIDE SUSTAINABILITY PATHWAY AS WELL AS A CLEAR FRAMEWORK ON GOVERNANCE, PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND REPORTING THAT IS IN LINE WITH INDUSTRY AND GLOBAL STANDARDS. While we develop our long-term action plan, our waste management, material utilisation and water consumption efforts continue apace. Leveraging on our partnership with PLUS Malaysia, a recycling campaign was initiated across three Rest and Service Areas (“RSA”) along the North-South Highway, together with the rollout of the KLEAN machine, an AI-driven reverse vending machine. Conscious of the importance of effective stewardship in an increasingly water-stressed world, we are also looking to scale up our existing rainwater harvesting facilities beyond the eight sites they are currently situated at. Beyond our own operations, we strive to deliver greater impact by embedding sustainability within our services and solutions. In 2022 alone, we delivered in this area by assisting eight hospital clients to receive the Green Building Index (“GBI”) certification and commencing the tracking of waste in client premises for enhanced waste management. We are also working with Alibaba to integrate their sustainability platform within Asseto so that our customers can measure, analyse and manage their carbon emissions. In a world where sustainability performance is growing in importance, these solutions make a tangible difference for asset owners and are helping to drive our differentiation as a service provider. It has been equally encouraging to see the progress we have made in international expansion and diversification. During 2022, we officially entered the market of the KSA with the establishment of Edgenta Arabia Limited (“EAL”) and the impending purchase of a 60% stake in MEEM, one of the country’s leading facilities management companies. As a result, we are now in a strong position to bid for the sizeable Integrated Facilities Management (“IFM”) contracts that will become available under the government’s Saudi Vision 2030 masterplan. At the same time, we have also deepened our penetration of the industrial and hospitality sectors while picking up key contracts for infrastructure services and asset consultancy in East Malaysia and Indonesia, thereby making strong headway on our Pan Malaysia strategy and building our regional presence. These wins are a testament to the dedication of our team, who are invested in our Edgenta of The Future 2025 (“EoTF2025”) strategy and making it a success. Due to the proactive steps we have taken in the past year, we are now a more diverse organisation than before, both in terms of geography and sectoral presence. This means that we can access growth markets and quality earnings opportunities across Asia with agility, leveraging technology and sustainability-driven solutions to deliver added value to asset owners and enhance value creation for all stakeholders. DEEPENING OUR ESG COMMITMENT At UEM Edgenta, sustainability is a key driver of our value creation aspirations. By embedding sustainable practices into our operations and offering products and solutions that improve our customers’ sustainability performance, we aim to drive positive impact across our value chain and be recognised as an industry leader in ESG. In June 2022, we launched our two-year sustainability roadmap (FY2022 – FY2024), outlining a focused, Group-wide sustainability pathway as well as a clear framework on governance, performance management and reporting that is in line with industry and global standards. Guided by our roadmap, we then commenced our inaugural emissions inventory exercise in August 2022 with the collection of emissions data from across the Group, while introducing capacity building programmes to empower our Board, management personnel and data owners in understanding our environmental footprint and how we can structure emissions reduction goals. Complementing these actions, we have also taken a more active role in climate action at the national level, becoming a member of Climate Governance Malaysia and shaping collective action through the CEO Action Network (“CAN”). As a consequence of our focused efforts in sustainability, our FTSE4Good rating improved significantly – from 2.5 to 3.1 – during the past year. This places us above the emerging markets threshold for possible inclusion in the index and indicates that we are tracking well against global ESG standards. Meanwhile, we were honoured at the 2022 Malaysia Outstanding ESG Impact Corporate Awards by the KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific, a testament to our strong performance across the ESG spectrum. Our varied initiatives and their impacts are detailed in our expanded and enhanced Sustainability Statement, which provides insight into the role that sustainability will continue to play in building the Edgenta of The Future. STANDING ASTRIDE OUR PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES Environmental action forms one focus area of our ESG framework, which also enshrines Education and Community Enrichment and Well-Being as pillars of our approach to creating long-term value. In 2022, our community-based activities spanned 15 livelihood projects and stakeholder engagement activities, impacting more than 12,500 underserved communities nationwide and assisted by 790 volunteering hours contributed by our Edgenta Stars. These activities included support provided to underprivileged communities for festive celebrations, the donation of critical healthcare equipment, the refurbishment of school premises, the provision of school supplies to low-income families and disaster relief to mitigate against the impact of ever more frequent floods across Malaysia. Looking forward, we will continue to attune ourselves to the evolving needs of communities in our vicinity, with the aim of delivering programmes that drive sustainable socio-economic development and further our impact as nation builders. p.32 p.33 UEM EDGENTA BERHAD INTEGRATED ANNUAL REPORT 2022 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 KEY MESSAGE
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