Climate Change Data

Environmental Metrics

ESG Focus Areas

• Corporate Governance
• Economic performance
• Long-term and Responsible investing
• Employee Health, Safety, and Wellbeing
• Talent Development and Learning
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Cyber security
• Environmental Footprint
• Community Engagement

Environmental Achievements

• Placement of recycling bins in the common area of Wisma JcbNext to encourage recycling.
• Started looking into renewable energy for Wisma JcbNext by installing solar panels on the roof of Wisma JcbNext. The goal is to complete this in 2024.

Social Achievements

• Provided a safe and healthy work environment, enhancing employee health and well-being
• Education and training activities that enhance employees' knowledge, skills and competencies to achieve better work performance and support employees' future growth
• Promoting diversity and equal opportunities within the workforce, including gender, race and other forms of diversity.

Governance Achievements

• Ensuring compliance with all laws and regulations
• Operating transparently, with integrity and accountability. Adopting the highest standards of professionalism, honesty and ethics
• Reviewed our ERM framework and Risk scorecards. Some scorecards were amended and new ones were added to better monitor our investment-related risks.
• Created and approved a Sustainability Policy by the Board.

Climate Goals & Targets

Environmental Challenges

• The challenging external environment impacted economic growth.
• Persistent selling pressure throughout the year, largely attributed to the outflow of funds resulting from multiple interest rate hikes in the United States.
• Sluggish economic conditions in China, a lack of substantial stimulus and the absence of major infrastructure projects also contributed to the lacklustre performance of the local index.
• Global book market encountered considerable headwinds in 2023, with varying performance across different market segments.
• The US market, which is the largest book market in the world, saw a slight year-on-year decline in unit sales of printed books.
• The UK and Australian book markets also experienced a downturn in unit sales of printed books due to readers returning to their normal consumption habits after the surge in demand triggered by the pandemic.
• The Chinese book market experienced a 5% increase in unit sales of printed books in 2023 but on the back of a 7% decline in value as publishers and booksellers resorted to aggressive discounting tactics to clear the inventory that had accumulated during the COVID-19 lockdown period.
• Rise in competition from Chinese printers for overseas book printing orders. This overcapacity has exerted downward pressure on printing margins for the industry.
• Significant risk that politicians in the West may exert more pressure on investors and corporates to comply with such ‘de-risking’ policies and impose further tariffs on goods imported from China and other regions.
• Fall in Neodymium and Praseodymium (NdPr) prices, escalation of project capital cost and general uncertainty over the expected commencement of production negatively impacted Hastings Technology Metals Limited.
• Chinese stocks and the Hong Kong stock market did not fare well in 2023 due to sluggish post-Covid recovery, property sector woes and fears of regulatory crackdowns while the US Fed kept raising interest rates.

Mitigation Strategies

• Continued with our strategy, albeit cautiously, of developing a broad portfolio of long-term equity investments that would generate dividend income at targeted yields which in return can be paid onward to our shareholders.
• Devoting time to monitor our existing equity investments for any telltale signs of trouble.
• Ready to seize the opportunity to make further investments if valuations of target stocks become attractive.
• Incorporated the consideration of investing in companies that have a “net positive social utility” into our investment policy documents.
• Endeavour to keep our operational costs low and incorporate proper risk management measures into our daily operations.
• Outsourcing most of our IT requirements to reliable third-party hosting providers with specialized expertise.
• Continuously reviewing potential threats and educating our employees on the types of cyber threat tactics used to stay vigilant.

Supply Chain Management

Climate-Related Risks & Opportunities

Reporting Standards

Frameworks Used: Bursa Malaysia’s Listing Requirements, Bursa Malaysia’s Sustainability Reporting Guide (3rd Edition)