Driving Brand Transformation and Shaping a Sustainable Future through Innovation and Community Engagement
The retail industry is growing at a rapid rate where Deloitte revealed the top 250 retailers worldwide recorded 8.5% year on year growth, up from 5.2% the previous year. However, this expansion comes with a significant environmental impact, mainly driven by Scope 3 emissions in a retailer’s supply chain. In 2020, these emissions were 28.3 times higher than Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions combined. At SML, we provide solutions to address this issue, empowering brands to become more sustainable across every level of their business.
Today, we are proud to share that our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report 2023 has been published, highlighting the remarkable progress we’ve made throughout the last year. Through ongoing innovation and collaboration, we have continued to make significant strides in driving sustainability. To achieve this, we prioritized the sustainability initiatives that matter most to our partners and more importantly, those that drive real change.
The report highlights the 2023 achievements in our environmental performance. As such, 45% of our products incorporate sustainable elements and 94.2% of waste was diverted from landfills. Notably, we adopted a more circular packaging approach by repurposing up to 1,000 kg of sticker liners per month in one of our production sites. However, we do more than simply improve sustainability within our internal operations, with 87.2% of our suppliers conforming to our environmental and social policies in 2023.
In our report, we also outline how we’ve reduced our environmental impact through our Operation Green initiative. For example, we installed solar panels with a total monthly generation capacity of 100,000 kWh at our manufacturing location in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the majority of our manufacturing locations in EMEA achieved 100% renewable energy use through the purchase of market-available renewable energy certificates. These are only a few of the sustainable initiatives we have successfully implemented as a business, enabling us to reduce our scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 36.3% compared to our 2018 baseline.
Our people know the crucial role they play in driving our sustained growth. The report also unveils the different employee-focused programmes we offer to improve the well-being and career development of our team. 69% of our employees underwent training in 2023, accumulating to 64,366 hours. In addition to personal growth, we regard employee health and safety as a priority and in 2023, we had a total incident rate of only 0.3. The full report provides an in-depth overview of our commitment to business integrity, demonstrating how our ethical business culture is the foundation of our sustainability.
Reflecting on a year of transformation and growth, Ignatius K.C. Lau, CEO of SML Group, said: “While this year marks yet another transformative year, our sustainability journey doesn’t stop there. Driven by our core values of circular economy, operation green practices, and driving positive social impact, we aim to set a new standard in sustainable value for our stakeholders. In our next chapter, our 2030 sustainability goals will act as a roadmap for us to reach new heights in our environmental and social responsibilities and leave a long-lasting legacy that spans generations.”
To read the full 2023 ESG Report, visit: here
