ECOVE Empowers All Members for Sustainability Efforts and Internalizes ESG as Daily Practices

─Ya-Hui Lin, General Manager of the Department of Planning, ECOVE ESC, Group Resource Cycling Business

CTCI's Group Resource Cycling Business, ECOVE sees ourselves as resource cycling enablers. Holding fast to the  corporate culture of "Professionalism, Integrity, Teamwork, Innovation," we have been caring for Taiwan's social development, and actively fulfilling our promise to become "the most reliable" brand.

Since 2018, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread worldwide with far greater severity than everyone could ever imagined. The threats and impact brought on human health, economic growth, and social development have also made the world come to the realization that "sustainability" is critical to corporate development and to place emphasis on three aspects of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG), which, in turn, has also progressively become the standard for sustainable operations of enterprises globally. The key for enterprises to implement sustainable transformation lies in their employees, because "people" are the ones promoting CSR, implementing ESG, and helping enterprises move towards sustainable operations.

We at ECOVE advocate the integration of business and mission. With an eye on enabling every personnel to live up to the spirit of " Caring for ESG with Company-Wide CSR Engagement," we provided our colleagues with professional knowledge and functional skills required for their career development through the "CTCI University" online education platform, and set up the "CSR Hour Training Platform" to imperceptibly influence and foster the culture of sustainability through daily work. Notably, the "CSR Hour Training Platform" shares how ECOVE forged a sense of identity among personnel through subtle advocacy 365 days a year, carried out sustainability empowerment, and internalized ESG into daily lives to contribute substantially to the sustainable development of the earth.

Integrating Mission with Business, Nurturing the Emotional Side of Employees

For an enterprise, employees play a pivotal role in initiating and sparking organizational culture and in spurring the company towards sustainability. ECOVE has a deep understanding and expectation of this and views employees as our greatest asset. As CTCI endeavors to fulfill corporate social responsibilities with its core competencies, we at ECOVE are realizing this goal with our three main business areas, waste management and incineration, renewable energy and recycling, and other resource cycling businesses. With the aim of enabling personnel to understand the impact of their work on the company, the environment, and society, and encourage them to relentlessly refine their work and implement ESG, emphasis was placed on the emotional sides (soft skills)that touch on the humanity and cultural aspects apart from training and development of vocational skills, among other hard skills. Just like how a car (hard skills) cannot run without gasoline (emotional aspect), without a conducive culture, regardless of how well formulated the SOPs may be, the efficacy of end product is often less than desirable. We at ECOVE have always aspired to solve environmental and social issues through our business activities while showering care and concern for our personnel, the environment, and the society in the course of the operation of the enterprise. Such a notion must be understood and embraced by personnel so that they bear "CSR challenges customers wish to solve" in mind, and transform that into various initiatives to drive the development of ESG efforts. With this notion, ECOVE embedded ESG issues into different annual education and training programs, which helps the company to foster values and corporate culture which supports CSR, and nurture personnel demonstrating professionalism and make positive contributions to the realization of our vision. ECOVE thereby comes a more attractive employer.

Develop a Common Language on Sustainability Through Joint Reading

The abovementioned demands led to the  "CSR Hour" platform, where education and training materials for all personnel are delivered via weekly electronic employee publications. Given that ECOVE's personnel are located at various locations at home and abroad, the intranet connects personnel from various locations. CSR knowledge, ESG performance, corporate culture, work experiences were morphed into digestible content and distributed to all personnel on a fixed time every Friday afternoon, thus establishing a common language, inspiring their interest in CSR. Through regular and unceasing efforts, personnel are immersed in the culture of CSR over a prolonged period, hence entrenching, fortifying, and optimizing ESG as part of our corporate DNA. Personnel can also experience a sense of mission in their work, and appreciate the meaning of their work to the company, the environment, and the society. To ensure that information is conveyed to every personnel, team joint reading, sharing at morning meetings, sharing within community groups, and other dissemination methods were adopted while the practices of reading, reflection, feedback, and sharing facilitated the assimilation of relevant knowledge and information, hence accelerating the understanding and internalization of ESG among personnel.

Establishing Corporate Citizenship Awareness that Everyone Can Relate to

The platform abandoned dogmatic preaching and took on a soft approach, so as to cultivate an awareness of corporate citizenship for our personnel into their daily works. For example, work and life-related issues were introduced into discussions on CSR knowledge to create resonance with colleagues. Also, during environmental protection events or green festivals, such as the Earth Day, World Ocean Day, etc., CSR classroom column was rolled out in line with these international initiatives and we would invite outstanding colleagues to act as ambassadors of the initiatives, who would help elucidate related concepts and strengthen the advocacy. Meanwhile, we also encouraged our personnel to take real actions to realize sustainability, such as engagement in energy conservation and carbon reduction in their lives. The CSR knowledge acquired by our personnel at work often becomes a topic of conversation with their family members, thus expanding the impact.

“CSR Hour” is linked with international initiatives with outstanding colleagues of the younger generation serving as ambassadors, who help promote energy conservation and reduction of carbon emission.

Combined with international initiatives, a CSR classroom column at the "CSR Hour" platform is launched that gives CSR-related knowledge in an in-depth and easy-to-understand manner.

Reliability and Safety Concepts Brought to Attention Through Fables and Stories

Besides the abovementioned, we also adapted colleagues’ daily work incidents into stories that stress the importance of reliability which were delivered to all personnel through "CSR Hour" platform. At ECOVE, nothing beats the provision of a safe and secure work environment for our personnel. Therefore, we not only invested in the building of a friendly, healthy, and safe work environment, but through Industrial Safety Month reading activities where thought-provoking fables replace provisional training at the platform, we reinforced the safety awareness of our personnel.

The series of reliability-related stories on “CSR Hour” are adapted from incidents that happened during daily works. Through company-wide reading, the stories triggered actions which, in turn, gave rise to quality and ultimately built reliability.

An occupational safety reading activity at “CSR Hour” platform that replaces provisional training with fables to reinforce safety awareness among personnel.

Employee-initiated company-wide reading campaign that shares about team safety commitments and reliability-related stories.

“CSR Hour” served as a communication channel between ECOVE and the employees. In addition to the advocacy of various CSR issues, information about the Group, news feeds, activities, etc. were also disseminated. Good deeds by colleagues or compliments received were shared on the platform so that all personnel could feel a sense of pride and to expand the impact of doing good. Moreover, this platform offered employee care functions. For example, messages were sent during World Diabetes Day to remind personnel to reduce their sugar intake while on Global Handwashing Day, personnel were reminded to wash their hands as the first line of defense against the pandemic. During festive seasons, warm greetings were posted so that personnel may share these with family members to increase interaction opportunities, so it would resonate with family members and become strong pillars of support.

Compliments for kind acts by personnel were shared through "CSR Hour."

Enhance Team Spirit, Shape Corporate Culture

Other than being passive recipients of information, "CSR Hour" also encouraged personnel to express personal opinions, share their experiences and develop team spirit. For example, the platform launched the "Write to ECOVE" activity, where personnel handwrite their thoughts on the company and CSR. The response rate was 91%, reflecting the effectiveness of our advocacy. ECOVE has established a common "sustainability language" and personnel understand that CSR is the corporate culture and daily norm of ECOVE. In addition, the "CSR Quotable Quotes" activity was held in the form of team exercises, where discussions and thoughts were triggered through the joint creation of sustainability-related quotes, thereby continuously shaping the corporate culture into the daily life of all personnel and boosting cohesiveness.

Personnel expressing their hopes and gratitude towards the company during the CSR Hour "Write to ECOVE" activity.

"CSR Quotable Quotes Challenge" activity is organized at the “CSR Hour” platform to allow our personnel to learn and pay attention to CSR.

"CSR Quotable Quotes Challenge" activity is organized to establish a common language and strengthen cohesiveness (pictured above shows the voting in progress).

Senior executives and external experts were invited to select ECOVE's best CSR quotes of the year. The quotes were brimming with our personnel's sense of mission towards CSR and their deep understanding of ESG.

Empowerment for Sustainability are the Key for ECOVE to Win Numerous Recognitions

"CSR Hour" is part of ECOVE's efforts in sustainability empowerment. Through the abovementioned actions, we strive to create an efficient and problem-solving team to implement businesses and promote innovation. The excellent results achieved enabled us to be recognized as the top 5% for corporate governance evaluation by Taipei Exchange for the seventh consecutive year this year (2021). In terms of our three business areas of waste management and incineration, renewable energy, as well as recycling and reuse, we also experienced steady growth and saw an EPS of more than NT$10 for nine consecutive years (till 2021). We were conferred various national level accolades, including  the Annual Enterprises Environmental Protection Award by the Environmental Protection Administration and the total amount of carbon emission reduction has exceeded the carbon absorption by 800 Daan Forest Parks (for detailed information, please refer to the 2020 ECOVE Corporate Sustainability Report). These achievements shall go to all our colleagues, who, based on a consensus for ESG values, took responsibility for their work and delivered the most reliable quality, by attaching importance to integrity and the spirit of service both internally and to the external parties. As the ESG wave grows, ECOVE has combined mission with business to achieve more and progress further, "empowerment for sustainability" shall always be an integral pre-emptive measure for ECOVE.