The broad strategic objectives that guide our sustainability initiatives relate to the environment, workplace and operating practices and the communities where our ships trade and where our people live and work.
At sea, sustainability initiatives are oriented towards reducing our impact on the atmosphere and marine environment. We seek to reduce waste by minimising what we consume both at sea and ashore.
In the workplace, we strive to create a culture whereby safety prevails across all activities and operating practices, and where our employees can thrive and make a difference.
In the community, we advocate and engage with organisations that are involved in or connected with the business of shipping.
It is under this framework that Pacific Basin takes an active approach to CSR and whereby our policies and systems govern behaviour and practices. However, it is the spirit and the culture within our Company that turn sustainability efforts into reality and make a difference both within and outside of our organisation.
Reporting Framework and Scope
This report, in combination with the CSR content on our website, serves as a record of our environmental initiatives and performance, and is focused on areas of materiality to our business and stakeholders. The report has been tailored to conform to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange guidelines for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting and draws upon the International Integrated Reporting Council's International
The scope of the report covers environment, workplace and community activities where we focus on initiatives that reduce our environmental impact, reinforce our class-leading safety culture and mitigate safety and environmental risks, enhance job fulfilment and promote responsible engagement within the communities where we operate.
Our CSR reporting focuses on the majority portion of our fleet which comprises owned and finance-leased vessels that we control both commercially and technically. It is these vessels over which we have the authority to mandate and control Safety, Quality, Health and Environment (SQH&E) policies and actions. Our fleet of owned and finance-leased vessels averaged 48 ships in 2012 (2011:43 ships). We also report on company-wide staff initiatives and performance. At 31 December 2012, we employed 2,100 seafarers and 320 shore-based staff.
Environmental and safety KPI data in this report has been measured or calculated in accordance with industry standards, and have been audited by Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance for ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 certification.
CSR Governance
The Chief Executive Officer is delegated responsibility by the Board for corporate sustainability. In turn, his direct reports have functional responsibility for specific areas of CSR. They include, among others, the senior managers of our Fleet & Newbuildings division (including technical operations, crewing and risk, safety & security), and our Human Resources & Administration and Corporate departments.
Materiality Matrix & Stakeholder Engagement
Pacific Basin engages in an active two-way dialogue with our stakeholders – primarily customers, partners, employees, shareholders and regulators. We are thus able to map issues that have the greatest impact to our stakeholders and our business, and to determine the basis for key areas for discussion in our CSR reporting.
In addition to our day-to-day contact with customers, we conduct regular customer and investor surveys that provide insight about our operations and ways we can improve. We also engage actively with associations that work to influence regulations that affect our industry.
In 2012 we contributed to the active dialogue on upcoming regulatory changes relating to Marpol Annex V and garbage management, hold washing and implementation of electronic chart display information systems.
