Siam Cement

Fairness, Dedication, Individual Value, and Social Responsibility

Wednesday 10 October 2012, by Albert, Sirikul, 卢宇宸

0 inspired

a. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Siam Cement operates as holding company engaging in the industrial supplies and construction industries. The company operates 6 core businesses consists of investments in the chemicals business, paper business, cement business, building materials business, distribution business, and investment business.

The company has operated 100 years and listed its stocks on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (The SET) in 1975 as symbol “SCC”, which recently be the fifth rank market capitalization of the SET. Nowadays Siam Cement is a leader construction business in Asia. Siam Cement has invested in core companies more than 200 companies around Southeast Asia, China, USA, and others and it has provided products more than 64,000 items distributing both domestic and global.

b. The ethical challenges this company is addressing

1. Support Environment Protection (3G: Green Product, Green Process and Green Mind)
All the industries operated by SCG are commonly related to pollution, such as the air pollution, water pollution and leak of chemical waste, etc. Instead of the usual strategy to only focus on benefit, SCG is trying to combine the environment protection and the maximization of the profit.

Use of environmentally friendly technologies, coupled with the 3Rs Concept of Reduce, Reuse/Recycle and Replenish, in order to most effectively utilize energy and natural resources and reduce wastes and pollutants. Examples of products and services that received the SCG eco value label in 2011 include;

SCG Chemicals
EL Green plastic pellet is the Compostable Plastics Compound that is 100% biodegradable under the suitable moisture and temperature for natural microorganisms and causes no harm to the ecosystem.

SCG Paper
Green Carton is produced by corrugated cardboard that reduces paper use not less than 25 grams per square meter but still maintains the same integrity.

SCG Cement
The Elephant Marine Cement emits lesser greenhouse gases during production by at least 350 kilograms per ton and is more resistant to chlorine in seawater, doubling the product lifespan of normal cement in such strength.

SCG Building Materials
An integrated ceramic roof tile and solar cell that can produce solar energy of 15 watts per panel.

2. Take Care of Employees’ Safety and Rights

Safety of the employees:
Attaining to the high risk chemical material, SCG implemented Safety Monitoring System to enhance storage and transportation safety standard that closely tracks the location of all trucks in real time.
Considering the big flood on Thailand in 2011, SCG is also responsible for establishing a risk treatment plan, crisis management plan, and business continuity plan for the stuff in the wake of any disaster.

Right of the employees:
Organized several training programs to build staff capacities at all levels in accordance with corporate growth strategy to ensure the business sustainable excellences.
Cultivated knowledge-sharing and joint learning culture among professional group and also emphasized openness and courage to share new ideas in working together.

c. What makes you think this company is ethical and why you trust it.

Siam Cement has been successful in positioning itself with a conscious of doing things for the benefit of the country, society, people, culture, heritage, and environment. These activities have strengthened people’s beliefs that Siam Cement is not just a conglomerate, but a conglomerate that cares.

- FAIRNESS: SCG provides clients and customers the best quality products and services at appropriate and fair prices.
- DEDICATION: SCG earnestly focuses on excellence. In the midst of rapid change and technology advancements, the group is facing very keen competition.
- INDIVIDUAL VALUE: SCG believes that employees are the most valuable assets. SCG owes its growth and prosperity to the contribution of its employees with competence, cardinal virtues and integrity.
- SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: SCG operates on the basis of a sound sense of responsibility towards the nation and the society in general. Generally speaking, its responsibilities keep growing year by year.

Moreover Siam Cement has continuously won many awards, guaranteed its ethical and responsibility to the social as followings:

Thailand:
- 2011: Award of Honor in the CSR category for 3 consecutive years (2008-2010) (from The SET)

Asia:
- 4 Awards in 2011: Best Managed Company Award, Best Corporate Governance Award, Best Corporate Social Responsibility Award, and Most Committed to a Strong Dividend Policy. (from FinanceAsia magazine)
- Ranked as sector Leader in ‘Gold Class’, the highest group, for 4 consecutive years (from in The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes: DJSI)
- 2012: The Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards 2012 (AREA) for Embedding People Value for Sustainable Future

d. The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

-  Challenge : How to maintain its leadership on both of ethic and sustainable development in ASEAN?
Solution: A hard decision has to be made on the balance of ethics and sustainable development for SCG. We suggest that it`s better for the company to keep its ethical standard, which is the fundament of development. Otherwise, they might lose the long-term position.

-  Challenge: How to adopt itself to the different government regulation and business atmosphere around the world?
Solution : According to globalization, people from all over the world are much closer than before. However, great differences still exist in government regulation and business atmosphere. In order to keep its success, we suggest that SCG should take two methods. The first is to do research & development and prepare its company into all aspects for confronting with abruptly changes. The other is to give training program to its stuffs and executives continuously.

Challenge: There`s the possibility for Siam to hide its CO2 emission?
Solution : We believe that, as a global group corporation, Siam will always receive critics from competitors and regulation of the government. It`s possible for SCG to hide the possible emission in one country, or cheat the citizen from one country. But it`s impossible for SCG to cheat people all over the world. The reality will give us the answer, and we have confidence in SCG.

Bibliography

http://www.scg.co.th/
http://www.set.or.th/th/news/issuer_activities/setawards/setawards_11.html
http://www.set.or.th/set/companyprofile.do?symbol=SCC&language=th&country=TH

Location: Bangkok (Thailand)

Sector: Construction

Official website: http://www.scg.co.th/en/index.php

Key figures:

Annual Revenue: US 12 Billion (2011)
Annual Profit: US 0.88 Billion (2011)
Employee: 38,000
Country of operations: 22 countries

Nbr. visits: 817