Community relation
GGC aim to conduct business in tandem with creating shared values with the society and communities to preserve the balance in business conduct, comprehensively respond to stakeholder expectations, and improve quality of life, economy, society and environment. In doing so, we uphold the principle of social engagement and demonstrate social responsibility through CSR projects and activities in collaboration with stakeholders on a continuous basis in order to grow with stability and sustainability.
Key Stakeholders
Employee
Community
Government
Customer
Goals
84 percent
from communities regarding GGC’s operations
29 communities
Management Approach
Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development Strategy
GGC has formulated a Group-wide Corporate Social Responsibility strategy with the 5 years target for CSR Transformation of Social Enterprise in compliance with sustainability guidelines accepted by international standards, such as the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN SDGs). This includes the business direction and growth of the Company. Furthermore, GGC focuses on expanding operational awareness to stakeholders, expanding the Company’s abilities regarding social responsibility, and building confidence in implementing social responsibility to all stakeholders. The Sustainable Development Oversight Committee oversees sustainability policies, strategies, and action plans.
GGC engages in social responsibility projects in accordance with the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development Strategy, including Strong, Grow, and Sustainable, while considering all stakeholder groups. These projects focus on contributing to the development of the economy, improving quality of life, enhancing education, and promoting environmental awareness within the community. The ultimate goal is to achieve genuine and lasting sustainability.
In addition, GGC is committed to caring for all our stakeholders in meeting our strategic goals and objectives, especially in a community where GGC has business operations. This commitment follows GGC Group's Good Corporate Governance & Business Code of Conduct Handbook. The Company’s objective is to engage with all local stakeholders surrounding the Company’s operations, establish trust and rapport, and mitigate any adverse repercussions of our operations. GGC focuses on improving the quality of life, conserving and promoting the efficient utilization of natural resources, advancing energy efficiency, and contributing to the well-being of society and the environment. GGC’s aspiration is to expand our business sustainably, generate value through responsible corporate citizenship, and play a role in the nation's economic progress. The engagement of local stakeholders has gained significance, prompting GGC to furnish the "GGC Local Stakeholder Engagement Statement" as a guiding principle for GGC’s employees engaged in business dealings, with due consideration for their impact on GGC's local stakeholders.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Strategy
GGC is committed to creating value for the community and society through its local operations. The Company aims to stimulate economic growth, improve quality of life, and uphold the environmental integrity of surrounding communities. This is achieved through conducting impact assessment to identify potential negative impacts on its local stakeholders and the continuous execution of capacity building programs and stakeholder engagement programs. GGC's primary operations involve Methyl Ester Plant 1 in Tambon Map Ta Phut, Rayong Province, and Methyl Ester Plant 2 in Tambon Khao Sok, Chon Buri. Consequently, GGC actively collaborates with local communities and community enterprises to address operational challenges and fulfill the needs of these communities, ensuring effective communication with the company through clear communication channels and conducting regular surveys of perceptions on engagement programs. GGC also conducts regular meetings with local stakeholders to identify emerging concerns. In addition, to ensure that all concerns, grievances, and complaints are effectively reported to the Company, GGC continues to track them through grievance channels.
Local Stakeholders' Impact Assessment
GGC conducts an annual impact assessment on environmental and social aspects, particularly focusing on communities surrounding GGC and its subsidiary production units. This entails conducting a materiality assessment to identify the scope of affected communities and the range of local stakeholders impacted by the Company’s operations in order to establish a management approach, business strategic plan, and key initiatives to mitigate the identified impacts. Furthermore, a Human Rights Assessment is carried out using the Human Rights Due Diligence Process to identify vulnerable groups at risk of human rights violations, such as human trafficking, forced labor, and child labor, in order to prevent violations within local communities.
Details about Materiality Assessment can be found at Materiality Topics
Details about Human Rights Assessment can be found at Human Rights
Capacity Building Programs for Local Stakeholders
GGC has conducted annual community engagement programs, including executive-community meetings, to demonstrate its commitment to social responsibility with the target scope to cover all communities surrounding GGC’s operations. In 2023, The local communities within a 5-kilometer radius were the focus, with 25 communities being considered as target participants. Priority will be given to communities near GGC’s operations and those previously collaborating with the Company. These meetings allow community members to ask questions about the company and raise their emerging concerns, allowing stakeholders to express views of the Company. The main objective is to promote understanding and enhance positive GGC and community relations.
The Objective of the Annual Community Engagement Program:
- Provide an opportunity for GGC to introduce itself to the community and share information about its business, vision, mission, and various activities. This helps create a proper understanding of the Company and fosters a positive image within the community.
- Provide a platform for GGC’s executives and employees to interact with community members. They can engage in conversations, exchange knowledge, build relationships, and better understand the community's needs, challenges, and context.
- Provide a platform to encourage community members to ask questions, share thoughts, and give suggestions directly to GGC's executives. This feedback helps the Company gain insights into the community's concerns, needs, and existing issues, which ultimately would be incorporated into developing and improving CSR Strategy.
In addition, this program serves as a strategy for displaying social responsibility, building positive relationships, and fostering sustainable community development.
Furthermore, GGC is committed to improving the quality of life in communities surrounding the Company’s operations. Therefore, GGC has partnered with local community and community enterprises to create job opportunities, enhance education, and generate income to enhance their overall quality of life. In 2023, GGC initiated key projects in local communities surrounding its operations including:
Green Health Project
Under the strategy of operating social responsibility in 3 areas, which consists of expanding awareness in operations, expanding responsibility, and creating confidence and satisfaction in operating with social responsibility,
GGC has prepared innovative products to help drive the co-creation of business between GGC and the local communities surrounding GGC’s operations. This effort is to enhance the knowledge of the local communities and ability to grow their incomes and promoting caring for the community and the environment through 3 collaborations as follows:
1. GGC supports community enterprises: GGC has been supporting the LUFFALA Community Enterprise in the Nong Fab community in Rayong province since 2017 by providing them with food and pharmaceutical-grade industrial glycerin (99.5%) and Deionized water, which are products of GGC. These materials are used by the enterprise to produce personal care products. The purpose of this support is to promote employment and income for the community enterprise, as well as to reduce production costs. In addition, GGC also supports LUFFALA’s hand sanitizer products for the local communities in all operation areas.
2. GGC collaborates with Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA) and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM): In 2020, GGC expanded its collaboration to implement the Green Health Project with Chulabhorn Royal College. The Company worked with its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) clients to produce health care and personal care products, specifically gels and alcohol sprays for hand hygiene. These products are intended to promote public health and prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in the surrounding communities. GGC, in partnership with Chulabhorn Royal College, distributed a total of 34,500 bottles, equivalent to 2,625 liters of alcohol gel and alcohol spray during the COVID-19 outbreak. Utilizing 80 liters of glycerin valued at 2,560 THB, these collaborative efforts aimed to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in the local communities.
3. GGC collaborates with the Thai Red Cross Society and the Standard Manufacturing Co., Ltd: GGC has extended its collaboration with its clients, Standard Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and an external organization, the Thai Red Cross Society, to work together on the Green Health Project. As part of this collaboration, GPSC has provided 120,000 bottles of alcohol gel to assist people in quarantine and elderly individuals across the country. Standard Manufacturing Company Limited, a client of GGC, purchases glycerin products from GGC to make alcohol gel. They are supportive of the Green Health Project and are actively involved in distributing alcohol gel at a reduced cost through the Thai Red Cross Society. As a result, a total of 170,106 bottles of alcohol gel, valued at over 1 million THB, have been successfully delivered.
Koh Kok Model: Health and Personal Care Product Project
Since 2022, GGC has collaborated with the Koh Kok community in Rayong province to conduct the Health and Personal Care Product program.
During the initial year, GGC developed product prototypes after conducting a community satisfaction survey, using the feedback to inform program development. Subsequently, in 2023, GPSC conducted research and product development with external consultants to create personal hygiene products using GGC's primary product, glycerin, along with locally sourced raw materials. The main goal is to use expertise to improve the community's quality of life, create job opportunities, and ensure responsible project implementation. This project is estimated to generate a social return value of 400,000 – 600,000 THB annually, resulting in an average Social Return on Investment (SROI) of 1.87.
Sustainable Palm Oil Production and Procurement (SPOPP) Project
GGC, in collaboration with the German International Cooperation Organization (GIZ) and the Thailand Oil Palm Smallholder Academy (TOPSA), has organized a project to support smallholder oil palm farmers in Thailand and implement sustainable palm oil production standards.
These standards encompass economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainability. The project aims to promote, support, and enhance the quality of life of small-scale oil palm farmers by introducing the Thai Oil Palm Producers Smallholder Development Course (TOPSA), establishing connections between farmer networks and oil palm mills, and preparing farmers to achieve RSPO certification by 2024.
The project is currently underway in four provinces: Krabi, Trang, Phang Nga, and Chumphon. GGC monitors the project's progress annually to guide future project development. In 2023, a total of 1,154 small households participated in the project, resulting in an income of over 17,443 THB per rai from oil palm production and a Social Return on Investment (SROI) of 1.06%.
More details about progress of SPOPP can be found at GGC Integrated Sustainability Report 2023
Communication Channel
GGC is committed to maintaining clear communication channels for local stakeholders to engage with the Company. This ensures regular updates and timely, consistent dissemination of accurate information about GGC's operations, plans, and potential impacts. The goal is to establish a two-way communication flow, enabling local stakeholders to express their thoughts, seek clarification, and actively engage with the Company. Dedicated platforms are used to facilitate these channels:
1. Monthly Community Visit
GGC has prioritized engaging with local communities in Rayong and Chon Buri provinces, through monthly visits by the Company’s representatives to foster knowledge-sharing, support healthcare services, participate in volunteer and cultural activities, and gather insights into the local community's concerns surrounding our operations. These visits provide an open platform for local communities to express their thoughts while ensuring that the communities receive accurate and timely updates about GGC's operations, future plans, and potential impacts. GGC aims to build community trust and transparency by establishing this bi-directional communication channel.
2. Whistleblower Channel
GGC has a policy of being ready to listen to feedback, suggestions, questions or complaints related to Corporate Governance, Stakeholder Concerns or supervise to the operation from all stakeholders, whether it comes from personnel within the organization or from the third party. All information of the Complainant including other information of this complaint are only for the purpose of investigation and fact finding which will be treated as a strictly confidential according to the Company's regulations. The Complainant acknowledged that the information must be reported as truthful and provided sufficient evidence. The whistleblower channel can be found in Whistleblowing
Grievance Tracking
GGC is dedicated to providing a clear grievance mechanism for stakeholders to voice complaints, seek resolution, and hold the company accountable, in line with GGC's Local Stakeholder Engagement and CSR Strategy. As a result, GGC has established a system for communities to report conflicts or concerns and a whistleblower policy to encourage reporting of inappropriate behaviours or actions against the Company's business ethics. The whistleblower system allows all local stakeholders to submit supporting documents through GGC’s whistleblowing channel. All complaints will be treated equally, transparently, and attentively. GGC ensures fairness to all parties and assures confidentiality and protection against retaliation for witnesses involved in the process. In 2023, there are no cases of any grievance from communities surrounding the GGC’s productions in Rayong and Chonburi provinces. The number of cases has been verified by the Rayong Department of Industrial Works (สำนักงานอุตสาหกรรมจังหวัดระยอง) and Chonburi Department of Industrial Works (สำนักงานอุตสาหกรรมจังหวัดชลบุรี).
More details about the whistleblower system and grievance mechanisms can be found at Business Conduct, Ethics and Compliance
Community Satisfaction Survey
In line with GGC’s Group-wide CSR strategy, GGC has been conducting an annual community satisfaction survey to address local concerns and understand the perceptions of our stakeholders regarding our engagement efforts. In 2023, due to our ongoing CSR initiatives, there have been no complaints from the local communities about our operations. Additionally, our community satisfaction score of 92.28% exceeds the set target and is consistent with GGC’s CSR strategy.
