On April 30, LONGi Group officially released the 2018 Social Responsibility Report, which is also the second social responsibility report issued by LONGi since March 2018.
For the first time, the report adopts the core program of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Standard (GRI Standards (2016)), which reflects LONGi’s positive response to the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)，combines the company’s business value chain and strives to advance toward the direction of corporate social responsibility.
Based on the disclosure of general issues, the report addresses issues of concern to key stakeholders such as customers, employees, shareholders and investors, governments and regulators, NGOs and the public, such as R&D innovation, cleaner production, environmental impact, employee development and PV poverty alleviation, etc. The report has made a major disclosure on these issues, and the highlights are:
Economy
The report quotes the company’s annual report data and discloses the company’s operating income, net profit and asset growth in 2018, reflecting the economic value of the company’s direct production and distribution. It has disclosed the proportion of hiring executives from local communities ―― in the overseas company LONGi Kuching, the proportion of local employees is as high as 99.79%, and among the 10 executives, 9 are Malaysian employees. The localization of talents has achieved remarkable results. During the reporting period, the company focused on building risk control capabilities into one of its core competencies. At the same time, the company carried out the communication and training of anti-corruption policies and procedures, improved the compliance management, and obtained ISO 37001 certification, becoming the first company in the global solar industry to pass the anti-bribery management system certification.
Environment
In terms of the environment, the report disclosed for the first time the energy consumption, water use and emissions of the 12 factories in the Wafer Division and the Module Division of LONGi. LONGi has been focused on full use of electricity when making PV products, and continuously strive for improving the proportion of clean electricity. For instance, Baoshan LONGi has achieved 100% use of clean energy (local hydropower) to manufacture PV products. In 2018, it consumed 3.06216*1011KJ of hydropower, which achieved the goal of clean manufacturing of PV products. The water consumption in the manufacturing process of LONGi PV products is all municipal water supply, and the silicon wafer business unit has a high utilization rate of 41.98%, which has become a highlight in energy saving.
Society
LONGi cares about the growth of its employees, which is reflected through the emphasis on talent development and cultivation, and the creation of a pleasant atmosphere for employees; The company adheres to the concept of Sunshine Cooperation, and continuously pays attention to the performance of suppliers’ social responsibility and jointly builds a green supply chain with them. It is also enthusiastic about public welfare undertakings, leading the way of PV poverty alleviation with high-efficiency products, and completing the integration of three PV poverty alleviation projects with a total investment of 540 million yuan, benefiting 2,667 poor households. LONGi also has made an effort by setting up scholarships, donating PV products to schools in poverty-stricken schools, and encouraging employees to participate in public welfare activities to promote poverty alleviation; the company not only cultivated beekeeping cooperatives in Hongcheng Water(Located in Tongxin County, Ningxia Province of China) donated them with solar street lamps, but also helped 20 families of extremely poor households in Lameng town (Located in Longling County, Yunnan Province of China) to renovate their dilapidated houses, to promote the sustainable development of poor communities.
In order to further enhance the standardization and credibility of the report, the social responsibility report has been verified by the world’s leading verification agency SGS-CSTC and registered in the GRI standard database. After the release, the company will continue to expand the reporting access channels, continue to communicate with stakeholders, and listen to feedback and suggestions from all parties to improve the social responsibility management level of LONGi.
About GRI
Founded in 1997, the Global Reporting Initiative is a non-profit organization co-sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics (CERES), based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Over the years, GRI is committed to developing a globally sustainable reporting framework that creates the most widely used CSR reporting reference standard worldwide. The vast majority of the world’s 250 largest companies use GRI guidelines to report their sustainability performance.
