On 12 October 2023, the 5th BDO Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Awards Presentation Ceremony was held at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong to recognise Hong Kong listed companies with outstanding ESG performance. Yuexiu Property Company Limited was awarded the Best in ESG Awards – Certificate of Merit at the BDO ESG Awards, recognising the outstanding performance of Yuexiu Property in the ESG areas of emissions management, resource use, environmental and natural resources and climate change at the environmental level and employment and labour practices, health and safety, supply chain management, product responsibility, business ethics and community involvement at the social level.
Pictures from the Award Ceremony
About the BDO ESG Awards
The BDO Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Awards recognise Hong Kong-listed companies that have demonstrated outstanding performance and positive impact in the areas of environmental, social and governance (ESG). Established in 1963, BDO, the organiser of the awards, is now one of the five largest accounting networks in the world. There is no entry fee and the award is judged by a panel of experts including the Supervisory Board Member of the World Benchmarking Alliance, the Head of Department of Government and Public Administration and Director of the Centre for Business Sustainability at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Institute of Directors, and the Executive Director of The ESG Consortium, which makes the award highly authoritative and recognised, and has always been widely supported by listed companies.
The BDO ESG Awards have been held since 2018, and Yuexiu Property has won the "Best in Reporting Awards" in 2018 and 2019, and the "Best in ESG Awards" in 2018 and 2021. The "Best in ESG Award" this time, after two years after 2021, relies on the improvement of the quality of Yuexiu Property's ESG report in 2022, which will help the judging panel understand Yuexiu Property's ESG performance in a more comprehensive and intuitive way.
This year's BDO ESG Awards comprises five categories, including "Best in ESG Awards", "Best in Reporting Awards", "the ESG Report of the Year Awards", "Outstanding ESG Performance of H-share Companies Awards" and the "Theme Award". The response to the nominations for this year's awards was overwhelming, with nearly 100 Hong Kong-listed companies participating in the awards. 15 companies were selected for the "Best in ESG Awards" (five from each of the categories of large cap, mid cap and small cap, with Yuexiu Property in the mid cap category), 16 companies were selected for the "Best in Reporting Awards", 5 companies were selected for the "Outstanding ESG Performance of H-share Companies Awards", and 5 companies were selected for "Theme Award". The company that achieves the best results in the "Best in ESG Awards" and "Best in Reporting Awards" will be selected as the winner of the "the ESG Report of the Year Awards" in its respective category.
Finalists List – Best in ESG Awards (Middle Market Capitalisation)
The theme of the BDO ESG Awards 2023 remains 'Carbon Neutral'. Increasing global warming remains an urgent global challenge. As society becomes increasingly concerned, the challenge of climate change is driving companies to incorporate ESG considerations into their business strategies and to do their utmost to make the world a greener place. In order to address the risks and challenges of climate change and create long-term sustainable value for all stakeholders and society, companies should fulfil their corporate responsibility and commit to a long-term net-zero emissions business model. The award of Merit in the Best in ESG Awards of the BDO ESG Awards is a recognition of Yuexiu Property's performance in its "carbon neutral" initiatives.
Yuexiu Property attaches great importance to ecological environmental protection, and actively responds to the call of "achieving carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060" and "building a beautiful China", and devotes itself to providing customers with green and healthy building products and services, and accelerating green and low-carbon transformation and high-quality development of the enterprise. In order to monitor and review the performance of climate change management, Yuexiu Property's ESG working group is responsible for promoting the formulation of objectives related to climate change, and a TCFD working group has been set up to promote and improve the relevant work, and conduct regular tracking and review after the Board of Directors' review and approval. At the same time, we are actively engaged in work related to reducing carbon emissions, striving to achieve a 35% reduction in greenhouse gas intensity (carbon dioxide emissions per unit of floor area) of commercial office buildings by 2030 (based on 2021), and net zero value chain greenhouse gas emissions by 2060.