SUSTAINABILITY – Leading Star

Press release

04 August 2021

PROPARCO SUPPORTS THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEADING STAR, A RESPONSIBLE ACTOR IN VIETNAM’S GARMENT INDUSTRY COMMITTED TO GENDER DIVERSITY

Through a $12 million loan, Proparco will support the growth of a job-creating company committed to the well-being of its employees, women empowerment as well as the sustainable use of resources.

About Proparco

Proparco is the private sector financing arm of Agence Française de Développement Group (AFD Group). It has been promoting sustainable economic, social and environmental development for over 40 years. Proparco provides funding and support to both businesses and financial institutions in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle-East. Its action focuses on the key development sectors: infrastructure, mainly for renewable energies, agribusiness, financial institutions, health and education.

We believe our sustainable growth measures are pivotal to our strong performance and reputation over recent years across geographies and products. While we pursue our growth strategies, we focus on implementing robust environmental conscious practices and are committed to operating our business in a sustainable manner. We intend to continuously work to reduce our carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, reduce water consumption and reduce material usage. Also, we believe our focus on employee care and various initiatives of employee welfare led to a high satisfactory rate among our employees and thus increased productivity. We believe, as one of the early-movers who taps into the strength of sustainable practices, we will strive to stay ahead of the competition in the apparel manufacturing industry.

TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

We are transparent about and remain accountable for our sustainability performance. Hence, we make known our sustainability targets and publish our corporate sustainability reports annually to summarise the many sustainable actions and achievements taking place across the Company.

SUSTAINABILITY TARGET AND REPORT

SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORK

Leading Star (Asia) Holdings Limited (“the Company”) and its subsidiaries (“the Group”) foster the close relationship of the corporate sustainability with the society and the environment. The Group is not only committed to complying to the international and buyer’s standards, and is also highly concerned with environmental protection, community involvement and participation, and has incorporated the sustainability into the corporate strategy planning and daily operation for effective fulfilment of corporate social responsibility.

Furthermore, in recent years the Group has been investing heavily in human capital and advanced automation equipment for enhancement of manufacturing processes, collaborating with customers in new product development and strengthening talent development and training, bringing substantial and steady profit to its shareholders.

The Company is aware that emission reduction has become a highly concerned topic around the world and is therefore striving to improve environmental protection and energy saving facilities, as well as to establish system for prevention of environmental pollution.

The Group has implemented appropriate policies for conservation of resources.

Environmental protection is concerned amongst the society and customers, and has therefore adopted green philosophy in the entire business processes.

Apart from complying all the local employment regulations, the Group has also established policies to ensure that each employee is given equal treatment, promotion opportunity, as well as their choices and rights are respected.

In order to protect the employees’ health from operational impacts and prevent the occurrence of safety incidents, the Group has established health and safety system for supervision and implementation of effectively preventive and corrective program.

The Group has established procedure for formulation of staff training programme, supervision of implementation of the training programme, as well as evaluation of employee competence and training effectiveness.

The Group requested the suppliers to abide by the code specified for their implementation. The scope of the code covered the supplier’s service performance and product conformity in safety and quality aspects.

Through the sophisticated technology and effective quality control techniques, the Group ensures that every product can fulfill the customer’s functional requirements and relevant product safety / quality standards.

The Group was striving to participate in community activities. Through a wide range of communication channels, good relationship with the nearby communities and social organizations has been established so that the Group can be aware of the community needs and timely respond and contribute to the society. The Group has actively supported environmental protection, education, and other social activities.

The Group convenes annual shareholders’ meeting which provides an effective platform to exchange views with shareholders.

In addition to the shareholders’ meeting, for maintaining close relationship with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders, the Group communicates from time to time with various stakeholders and listens to their views and needs through meetings, phone conference, the Group’s e-mail account and responsible personnel, etc.

The overall business performance of the Group is also reported annually to all investors in The Company’s interim report and annual report.