Bangchak Shares Perspective at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2022

Gloyta Nathalang, Executive Vice President, Corporate Branding, Communication, and Sustainability Activation, Bangchak Corporation Public Company Limited shared her perspectives at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2022 following the concept “The World We Want” organized by the Global Compact Network Thailand (GCNT) along with the United Nations The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) and the UN Country Team Thailand, bringing together more than 10,000 business leaders from around the world driving economic growth towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), addressing local and regional issues, ASEAN, before advancing to the entire Asia-Pacific region towards the Net Zero target, encompassing 3 critical global issues, namely, climate emergency, biodiversity, and social development.

Gloyta was a panelist for a session titled “SDG Ambition: Mobilizing Ambitious Corporate Actions Towards the Global Goals” along with sustainable business leaders from Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, moderated by an UN Global Compact executive. She stated that Bangchak is committed to the principle of “developing sustainable business innovation in harmony with the environment and society” and addressing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) selecting 9 relevant goals starting in 2016, and revised in 2021 categorizing the goals into two levels, namely, “in process” or goals directly related to business operations, and “after process”, referring to goals related to social initiatives, emphasizing SDG 13 Climate Action, launching “Bangchak 100X Climate Action: All Hands On Deck” campaign in 2022 to raise awareness and encourage everyone to take a role in addressing climate change. Bangchak Group executives pledged to offset their annual emissions to become Thailand’s first “Carbon Free Management Team”. Moreover, Bangchak and 11 other organizations established Thailand’s first Carbon Markets Club to promote carbon trading to reduce GHG emissions. Nevertheless, Bangchak continues its commitment to other goals in addition to SDG 13 and the 8 other goals, aware of the importance of all 17 goals to global sustainability.

The effects of COVID-19 on the company’s sustainable development and SDGs, Gloyta stated that despite the overwhelming effects on its 2020 performance, it was an important lesson agility, whereby Bangchak embraced the concept of “AGILITY”, adapting to all situations flexibly and quickly to survive, adjusting and adapting business operations along with integrating digital technology, risk mitigation through business diversification over many years, resulting in Bangchak Group recording its best performance in 2021.

Additionally, business operations committed to SDGs has numerous benefits in other dimensions, such as recognition for its sustainable leadership, receiving the S&P Global Sustainability Award 2022 – Silver Class from S&P Global ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance & Economic) assessment, which specializes in sustainable investment and is the assessor of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), or nurturing a workplace employees can take pride and be happy as proven by the Un Women 2021 Thailand WEPs Awards for Gender-Inclusive and Workplace category, or its inclusion among Work Venture’s Top 20 Companies that the new generation would like to work for.

Gloyta concluded that this was a great opportunity to exchange experiences and learn about sustainable development goals from business leaders from other ASEAN nations. What is shared is the need to set clear and realistic goals, prioritizing and understanding issues at the directorial, executive, and employee levels, and engaging business stakeholders, whereby the UNGC provides the SDG Ambition Guide and SDG Tools for clear and measureable goals setting.

Moreover, engaging with partners, albeit governmental, private, and civil society, is equally important. Bangchak Group targets Carbon Neutrality for 2030 and Net Zero for 2050 which it cannot achieve alone. As the Leader in Energy Transition and the recognized business leader in sustainable development, Bangchak has adopted the concept of “Leading Inclusively” in engaging and directing stakeholders of all sectors towards the same goal of global sustainability to leave behind a world of beauty for future generations.