2024/07/26
Last month, NOVOSENSE announced the publication of environmental, social and governance (ESG) report for 2023. This is the second such report commissioned by NOVOSENSE, to inform the board and shareholders of our progress against its targets.
As a company, our R&D focuses on helping the automotive and industrial power-generation industries to reduce their (considerable) environmental impact. But it's vital to the board that we and our operations cause as little impact to the local and global ecosystems as possible, and that we also uphold the UN's Sustainable Development Goals on environment, ethics and equity.
Within NOVOSENSE, ESG governance is overseen at the top management level and this report analyses the effects of our ESG policies on all aspects of NOVOSENSE's work, so not just on product design and manufacturing, but on internal employee and external partnership too.
We believe the momentum that lies behind our ESG governance is helping us work well towards both the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and reinforces our own company values to be robust, to be reliable, to keep learning, and to persist in prioritizing long-term value over short-term gain.
The full report can be downloaded from our website and we've broken down some of the key points in the below.
Summary of key findings:
Equity
Several initiatives implemented by NOVOSENSE have been highlighted in the report. These include:
- well-established equal-opportunity and diverse-hiring policies;
- the use of training programs;
- surveys to continually improve working conditions and staff satisfaction;
- programs to deliver a more balanced workforce;
- and the steps taken to foster open communications between staff and management.
The report also highlighted our voting incentive measures, and we're delighted to say restricted-voting shares have been granted 507 times during the year. And a total of 8 million shares have been granted to date.
With these, we are working strongly to uphold the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3, 4, 5, 8, and 10 and deliver well-being, education, gender equality, economic growth and equity for our dedicated team.
Environmental impact
Under the environment, we're striving to comply with UN Sustainable Development Goals 6, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 17, which relate to sustainable R&D as well as a low-carbon development approach.
Steps such as attaining ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems certification help significantly, but this is not our only effort, and the report cited several other positive steps in reducing our footprint. These include our green development philosophy, as well as significant measures that help us all reduce the energy we use and the effect the company has on biodiversity and the environment.
The report cited several positive steps that have been enacted to help increase energy efficiency. In particular, the commissioning of a new server design, which will save c.300,000 kWh per year from 2025; and the construction of our new Suzhou office, with energy-saving materials, conservation technologies, and the implementation of PV electric generation for powering the building.
We are also using AutoNavi to provide electric vehicles for business travel and delivery services, a move that enabled carbon emissions reductions of over 13 tons in 2023.
Business ethics
UN Sustainable Development Goals 12 and 16 focus on the need to operate with integrity and abide by strong business ethics and we take these exceptionally seriously.
On information and privacy security, NOVOSENSE had formulated a Personal Information Protection System and Personal Information Impact Assessment (PIA) Operation Guide.
And, as the report highlights, we have implemented anti-bribery, anti-fraud, and information security training sessions during 2023. These training sessions were first held during 2023 for NOVOSENSE staff in February and were then opened to our subsidiaries and salespeople and has now been accessed 627 times by people across our 859-strong workforce.
If you would like to find out more about NOVOSENSE's commitment to our environment, to our staff and society, you can download the full report here, or get in touch via our contact pages.
