The Group’s corporate theme is ‘Nurturing Sustainability’. Its Corporate Social Responsibility initiative seeks to find a balance betwixt the imperatives of ‘Profit, Planet and People’. In line with Bursa Malaysia’s CSR framework which looks at four (4) pillars namely Environment, Community, Workplace and Marketplace, CSR involves integrating open and transparent business practices into the operations based on ethical values and respect for environment, communities and employees towards delivering sustainable value to the stakeholders.
ENVIRONMENT: NURTURING GREEN ENGAGEMENT
The Group makes every effort to ensure that economic and social development is
always in harmony with the environment. Best management practices as spelt out in
the standard operational manuals are being implemented and also audited throughout
the supply chain. The Group continues to be actively involved in in-situ conservation
of remnant rainforest trees, collection and planting of medicinal plants and
rehabilitation of several sites with the planting of tropical timber saplings. Areas in the
Group have been set aside for forest tree planting. Local villagers are employed to work
in the Group’s forest tree nursery project in Sugut. The Group also supports
stakeholders’ engagement by hosting visits from various groups to its operations.
Employees also participated in the tree planting project during the Earth Day
celebration – commemorating the importance of environmental consciousness and
conservation imperatives. 
COMMUNITY (1): YOUTH SPORT EXCELLENCE
One of the Group’s central and ongoing CSR project is its’ sustainable engagement with its surrounding community through youth rugby sports development in Sabah. The Academy of Rugby Excellence is the landmark platform established in collaboration with the Sabah Education Department, Sabah Rugby Union and Sandakan Rugby Club towards realising the success of promoting rugby sport excellence amongst the local youth in Sabah. Today, the project is the umbrella for 48 schools involving over 2,000 schoolchildren throughout Sabah where rugby has been incorporated into their school extra-curriculum activities. Sports enthusiasts have publicly quoted IJM Plantation’s initiative as “a benchmark for exemplary and well-executed sports promotion and development”. In addition, the Group continued sponsoring and organising the 13th edition of the plantation fraternity football tournament.
COMMUNITY (2): BREAST HEALTH AWARENESS
The Group continues to enlighten the surrounding community through organised public health awareness projects. In the previous years, this project has covered Sabah towns of Sandakan, Keningau as well as the rural area of Apin-Apin. In this reporting year, a public forum covering talks on breast cancer and demonstration on breast self examination (BSE) were sponsored and jointly organised by the Group together with the Sandakan Breast Health Awareness Committee of the Duchess of Kent hospital in Sandakan. The forum attracted more than 400 participants. This year, the target audience were school girls in anticipating that BSE can be promoted early among the younger generation. During the forum, the nutritional properties and benefits of palm oil along with updated research findings linking palm oil to breast cancer research were also shared with the participants.
COMMUNITY (3): EDUCATION IMPERATIVES
The Group believes that access to basic education builds a brighter future. In the operating units, the Group strives to provide basic education for all the children of the workers and the surrounding community. This is implemented through the establishment of kindergartens as well as education learning centres to cater for primary school children. The brand new and purpose-built education learning centre in Desa Talisai Estate has been a fruitful collaboration between the Group and a local NGO, Borneo Child Aid – Humana (Website: http://www.borneochildaid.org/). The centre operating since May 2008, comprises of three purpose-built classrooms catering for over 100 children of different age groups.
Education remains an important prerequisite to nurture the younger generation toward academic excellence. To meet this aspiration, both IJM Scholarship and IJM Academic Award have been initiated to recognise academic excellence. While the former focuses on provision of scholarship amounting to RM10,000 per annum to needy students pursuing tertiary education in Malaysia, the latter rewards the employees’ children and affirms the contribution of parents whose children excel in their studies.
COMMUNITY (4): INFORMATION AND FORMATION
In the reporting year, the Group participated at various educational exhibitions which provided useful information on the palm oil supply chain for the benefit of the public. The Group was also involved in conducting various educational and career talks in local secondary schools thus providing useful information and knowledge pertaining to career opportunities in the Malaysian palm oil agribusiness.
In addition, operating units within the Group have also catered for youth attachment and placement trainings offering the participants training and working experience in the plantation. To-date, a total of 1,051 youths from the government sponsored programmes, local vocational centres and universities have benefited from this programme.
WORKPLACE: PEOPLE FIRST
The Group is mindful of the needs and welfare of its
employees and continues to improve the quality of life.
The Group has placed emphasis on the housing
infrastructure and other related facilities in the
operating units. There is an ongoing housing
improvement programme, which includes phased
construction of new houses and renovation of older
ones throughout the Group. The houses are equipped
with basic amenities including treated water,
electricity supply and recreational facilities. In
addition, creches and clinics are also constructed in
the operating units for the benefit of the workers.The impact of the high and rising food prices has put immense pressure on daily living expenses. The Group lends a helping hand during these hard times through a food subsidy programme involving cooking oil and rice. In addition, initiatives to cultivate vegetables and fruit trees were promoted to enhance food sufficiency – with the harvests distributed among the staff and workers. The Group supported these initiatives by way of provision of planting material and agro-fertiliser inputs.
The Group also promotes ethnic cultural heritage conservation among the Sabahan employees by encouraging them to pursue excellence in performing cultural dances. In-house dancing troupes have been performing in organised events as well as competitions. The Group also encourages its employees to participate in sports activities by organising sports and family day events throughout the operating units and also by providing sport facilities for staff and their immediate family members. These activities help to promote esprit-de-corps among the employees.
The Group continued with its training and retraining programme for all levels of employees. In the reporting year, full-time cadetship for planters was initiated in Sugut to cater for manpower needs in Indonesia. English language classes have also been initiated in various operating units to improve the employees’ English proficiency. Both written and oral English proficiency are taught by staff teachers after working hours for the benefit of participating employees.
MARKETPLACE: ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS