Zhitong Financial APP News, recently, Gemdale Commercial Property (00535) released the "2023 Environmental, Social and Governance Report", covering its environmental, social and governance matters related to property development, property investment and management business in Chinese mainland in the financial year 2023.
Founded in 2013, Gemdale Property & Investment is a member of Gemdale Group, integrating comprehensive real estate development and asset management platform, through the development and sales, investment management and service operation of diversified properties such as industrial parks, commercial offices, rental residences, and sales residences, providing integrated space and services for enterprises and individuals in cities and urban agglomerations with the greatest development potential, building urban value, promoting urban value-added, and striving to become an integrator of urban value.
According to the ESG report, Gemdale Property & Investment attaches great importance to sustainable development and is committed to strengthening the performance of relevant aspects at all levels, and has formulated a sustainable governance structure: 1) Board of Directors – responsible for the Group's overall ESG strategy and reporting, formulating ESG development direction and targets, and monitoring relevant progress; 2) ESG Task Force – Implement ESG policies and measures, collect relevant information and data, evaluate the effectiveness of sustainable development strategies, and conduct regular internal reviews; 3) Other business units – Implement ESG policies and measures at the day-to-day operational level to control usage, emissions and other important indicators. At the same time, the Group attaches great importance to the interests, concerns and opinions of its stakeholders, and has maintained close two-way communication and coordination between different business units and stakeholders in its daily business activities. During the reporting period, the Group identified 30 ESG issues, covering the environment, employment and labour, operations and communities.
Caring for the environment: Supporting green operations and reducing environmental impact
As a real estate company focusing on property development, property investment and property management, Gemdale Property & Investment has always regarded environmental protection as an important business consideration, so that customers and other stakeholders in its projects can enjoy a natural and unspoiled environment.
The energy used by the Group is mainly utility electricity and gasoline, and the greenhouse gas emissions mainly come from the energy use of daily office and property management work. The decrease in Scope 1 CO2e generated during the reporting period compared to the previous year was mainly due to lower gasoline use due to lower trips; The increase in Scope 2 CO2 equivalent compared to last year was mainly attributable to a slight increase in electricity consumption due to the gradual relaxation of anti-epidemic measures and the resumption of business operations, as well as an adjustment to the calculation of greenhouse gas emission factors generated by electricity during the year.
(Photo source: Gemdale Properties & Investment (00535) "2023 Environmental, Social and Governance Report")
As all real estate development projects are outsourced to professional third-party contractors, the Group does not emit a large amount of direct exhaust gas and sewage during the project development process. However, the group took on the responsibility of supervising the contractors and commissioned a third-party engineering consultant to regularly inspect the environmental protection, working environment and safety conditions of each project site, and integrate green concepts into the project design.
As of 2023, a total of 7 projects of the group have obtained the three-star certification of green building design; 45 projects have obtained two-star certification for green building design; 44 projects have obtained one-star certification for green building design; 1 project obtained the two-star certification of green building operation. Compared with 2022, 17 new projects will be certified for green building design in 2023. In addition, a total of 1 project has obtained LEED Platinum certification; 3 projects achieved LEED Gold certification; 1 project achieved LEED certification level. At the same time, the Group encourages its properties and projects to incorporate green elements into their products, such as installing air source heat pumps, water-saving faucets, water-saving sanitary appliances, low-e glass windows, high-efficiency fans and pumps, high-COP air-conditioning units and chillers, implementing rainwater recycling, increasing the thickness of insulation, etc.
It is worth mentioning that in terms of the construction of low-carbon parks, Gemdale Weixin Industrial Park has made remarkable achievements in promoting the construction of distributed photovoltaics. In December 2023, Gemdale Weixin completed the grid-connected PV capacity reaching 11MW, generating about 8 million KWh of renewable energy and reducing CO2 emissions by more than 7,200 tons. In particular, in the Chengdu Wuhou Science and Technology Innovation Park project, the installed capacity of photovoltaic construction is 450KW, and the annual power generation capacity is about 350,000KWh, providing more than 30% of the total electricity consumption of the park.
People-oriented: Pay attention to talents and provide development opportunities for employees
Gemdale Property & Investment attaches great importance to the cultivation and welfare of talents, and continues to attract and retain talents through effective human resources policies, provide appropriate training for employees, and improve the quality of employees. As of December 31, 2023, the Group had a total of 2,739 employees (2022: 3,283), all of whom were full-time employees. 60 per cent are males and 40 per cent are females.
The business of the Group has a considerable degree of professionalism, so the enhancement of human resources is an indispensable part of the Group's sustainable development. The Group has developed a comprehensive training system for employees at all levels, including different forms of corporate culture, professional management and general management courses, to enhance employees' working knowledge, skills, professional quality, and stimulate their potential. In addition to internal online and offline training courses, the Group also encourages employees to participate in external training courses, including job responsibilities and skills training for special positions, and the Group will bear the training costs of all qualified and beneficial courses. The Group also arranges different career development plans and plans, such as job rotation, transfer, expatriation, etc., according to different business characteristics and employees' personal aspirations, abilities and development needs.
During the Reporting Period, all employees of the Group received training and the average number of training hours was 1.3 hours (2022: 15.6 hours), representing a significant year-on-year decrease. According to the report, this change is mainly due to the downward trend of the current economic situation in the industry, prompting the company to shift its focus to core business areas such as increasing sales revenue, improving capital collection and strictly controlling expenditure.
In addition, the Group attaches great importance to occupational health and safety and has taken proactive measures to provide an ideal and safe working environment for the Group's employees, construction personnel of real estate project contractors and tenant employees. For example, for the outsourced business personnel engaged in the construction of dangerous projects, the group formulates unified safety and civilized management and standard practices, safety operation standards for large machinery and other systems and specifications, and regularly organizes internal training for all employees to enhance the awareness of safe construction management. Through a series of occupational health and safety measures and the cooperation of all parties, the Group lost zero working days due to work-related injuries during the reporting period, and there were no work-related fatalities in the past three years.
Refining the value of the city: developing high-quality real estate projects
With the mission of building value for the city, Gemdale Property & Investment is committed to developing high-quality real estate projects.
First of all, the group takes all necessary measures to ensure the quality of real estate projects. For example, the Group conducts long-term quality control over real estate projects, regularly inspecting contractors and suppliers, as well as their work, services, materials provided, etc.; A "red and yellow card" warning mechanism has been established to clarify red line behaviors and accountability methods, standardize management behaviors, adhere to the bottom line of quality, and ensure construction safety.
Secondly, the group has extremely high requirements for project quality, and has adopted a strict review process for six categories of suppliers involving civil engineering, mechanical and electrical, curtain wall, decoration, landscape and intelligence.
As the Group's project development works and property management are outsourced to contractors and subcontractors, the quality of the Group's projects and ESG performance are largely dependent on the performance of the supply chain. Therefore, the group has established a sound supplier selection mechanism, such as the development of a series of system documents such as shortlisted inspection, selection, bidding, post-supervision and evaluation, etc., to ensure that each selection process is based on appropriate conditions, unified standards, fair, just and open screening of suppliers who do not meet the standards. In order to effectively control the quality of raw materials and services and reduce the ESG risks faced by the Group, the Group continues to track the update of laws and regulations related to supply chain quality and environmental management, and formulate a series of internal control measures to identify, prevent and mitigate relevant risks with reference to the risks faced by its peers.
In addition, the Group uses local suppliers for all of its projects to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation of its products and services. In FY2023, the major project subsidiaries included in this report worked with a total of 670 suppliers (2022: 607 suppliers), all from Chinese mainland.
Gemdale Property & Investment integrates social responsibility into its core values and long-term development goals, actively responds to the national dual-carbon strategy, sets up a team, implements various improvements in daily operations, and strives to provide products and services that are scientific, high-quality and cost-effective, and strive to achieve the dual-carbon goals. As of 31 December 2023, the Group had over 18.76 million square meters of completed/under-construction projects that meet green building standards, demonstrating the Group's commitment and pursuit of a low-carbon and sustainable corporate mission.
(ESG Link研究员谢雨霞)