Southern Steel

Sustainability Governance Structure

The Group had established a governance led from the top, with clear accountabilities for continual implementation of sustainability initiatives with the objective of striving for sound and sustainable growth.

The Group’s Sustainability Steering Committee ("SSC") comprises senior Head of Department of the relevant operations and is chaired by the Group Managing Director (“GMD”), with the Chief Financial Officer as deputy. The GMD plays the role of Chief Sustainability Officer, reporting directly to the Board on any sustainability matters. The SSC oversees the implementation of the Group’s sustainability approach and ensures that key targets are being monitored.

The SSC is assisted by Sustainability Working Committees (“SWC”) comprising key staff from various departments of the operating companies nominated by the SSC. The SWC’s reporting duties include provision of information, collection of feedback from stakeholders, addressing material sustainability issues and driving initiatives approved by the SSC.

Stakeholder Engagement

The Group defines its stakeholders as individuals or organisations that are expected to be affected or being affected by our business activities. Input, views and feedback from stakeholders were gathered during communication and engagement sessions, which were then taken into consideration in aligning with our business activities. Meetings and events were carried out in accordance with Government guidelines on the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Stakeholders	Engagement Channels	Purpose
Board of Directors	Board meetings	To engage actively with the board of directors in strategic planning, review on corporate governance practices, research and development and sustainability matters.
Employees	Town Hall Intranet Events Trainings Virtual meetings Physical meetings Surveys	To align employees with the Group’s goals and provide a clear perspective of what the Group wants to achieve in terms of sustainability. To enhance employees’ sense of well-being. To improve employees’ workplace conditions.
Customers	Email communications Telephone calls Virtual meetings Site visits Surveys	To build a strong relationship with customers with consistently meeting their expectations in quality and service.
Suppliers	Email communications Telephone calls Virtual meetings Site visits Site audits Surveys	To proactively engage with suppliers to ensure the best quality, service and effort in consistently meeting our expectations.
Union	Meetings	To cultivate a good relationship through effective communications. To obtain constructive feedbacks and concerns pertaining to the Union workers’ welfare.
Shareholders	Annual General Meeting Annual report Announcements	Precise and timely disclosure of the Group’s sustainability strategies and business performance to facilitate decision making by shareholders.
Government / Regulatory Authorities	Email communications Telephone calls Consultations Dialogues Audits and inspections	To build a good rapport with government and regulatory authorities in order to obtain support and update of the latest information on regulatory issues related to the Group’s activities. To strictly comply with applicable laws and regulations.
Trade association	Active participation in the steel association Conferences	To provide constructive inputs in policy making for the benefit of the industry. To actively participate in conferences, improvement and innovation competitions organised by the association.
Communities	Events and campaigns	To establish a good relationship and build trust by carrying out corporate social responsibilities’ activities to local communities.

Materiality Assessment

Taking into consideration the characteristics of the steel industry, the Group has identified key material issues that were important to sustainability through internal and external surveys to ascertain the “Business Impact” and “Stakeholder Impact” for each and every material issue identified. These material issues were then prioritised and categorised under Governance, Economic, Environment and Social. The material issues and action plans were then deliberated in the monthly SSC meetings.

Materiality Analysis Process

Materiality Analysis Result

Alignment to the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (“SDG”)

The SDGs are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere. In support of this, the Group has identified 11 SDGs that are closely associated with our materiality issues and will continue to promote these SDGs as part of our sustainability effort.

	SSB’s Sustainability Material Issues	Reasons	Alignment With SDG
Governance	Risk review	The Group understands the importance of effective risk management to ensure long-term business growth. We have established Risk Management and frequent risk review to mitigate or eliminate potential risks.
Governance	Ethics and integrity	The Group is committed to uphold integrity, accountability and transparency in the operations. We are certified to ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management system, whereby adequate procedures have been established with intention to prevent bribery and corruption from taking place. The Group constantly articulates the values we wish to foster in leaders and employees, and defines the desired behaviour in day-to-day operation and decision making. To uphold business integrity, the Group encourages reporting of genuine concerns on improper or wrongful conduct of any bribery and corruption cases within the workplace.
Economic Sustainability	Customer satisfaction	The Group recognises that building trust and strengthening relationship with customers through meeting customers’ expectation consistently is the key to business sustainability.
	Supply chain management	The Group continues to strengthen its supply chain management in order to ensure consistent supply of materials and services without compromising the quality and competitive prices.
	Innovative culture	The Group believes in fostering innovative culture to enhance the development of new ideas in business strategy, customer services, product development and process improvement.
	Product and quality	The Group continues to uphold rigorous effort to ensure the product quality meets the local and international standards as mutually agreed with the customers. As part of our commitment to environmental responsibility, SSB has been certified by SIRIM on the eco-labelling scheme, ECO 032:2020.
Environment Sustainability	Environment management	The Group adopted ISO 14001, which specified the requirements for an environmental management system that an organisation could use to enhance its environment performance.
	Response to climate change	In response to the fight against global climate change, the Group has proactively conducted preliminary assessment of Greenhouse Gas (“GHG”) emissions in the Group to establish GHG emission baseline.
	Circular economy and waste management	As a contribution to circular economy, the Group aims to maximise the recycling of steel scrap, by-products and waste.
	Water management	The Group is concerned about the scarcity of fresh water globally as well as locally. Therefore, we are committed to manage water consumption by maximising the recycling of water.
	Energy management	Energy is one of the major costs of our processes and a reduction in consumption will lead to abatement of GHG emissions as well as reduction in energy cost. Therefore, the Group has an established energy policy to monitor and manage energy activities.
Social Sustainability	Occupational safety and health	The Group targets to ensure safety, health and welfare of employees are well taken care of by implementing safety improvement programmes and activities.
	Disaster management	Covid-19 pandemic has brought enormous adverse impact to the health of the employees and our business operations. Therefore, we have established Covid-19 Risk assessment and mitigation plans to minimise Covid-19 cases within the Group.
	Human capital	The Group upholds labour rights by prohibiting the use of child labour and forced labour. The Group also acknowledges the importance of human capital development towards our business growth. Over the years, we placed great emphasis in developing and equipping our employees with necessary skill sets.
	Community engagement	The Group aims to contribute to the society by engaging our employees in activities of giving back to the communities and mother nature. This is done through our Heart-to-Heart (“H2H”) club.

Our Sustainability

Sustainability Governance Structure

Stakeholder Engagement

Materiality Assessment

Alignment to the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (“SDG”)