Jardine Matheson Holdings seeks to be an outstanding investment vehicle focused on building diverse, high-quality businesses in Asia-Pacific, delivering sustainable, top-quartile Total Shareholder Returns (TSR). We do so with a lean organisation committed to:
- active, long-term value creation;
- senior talent development aligned with variable long-term incentive compensation;
- world-class governance; and
- a commitment to delivering long-term sustainability improvements.
Jardine Matheson is deeply committed to sustainability, with a current focus on climate action, as it aligns with our values as an organisation and enhances resilience and long-term value creation across our portfolio. Our sustainability programme focuses on driving tangible continuing improvements for our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and committing to energy-transition initiatives across our portfolio.
As an investment company, how does Jardines incorporate sustainability into its investment philosophy?
Each asset in our portfolio today, and future investments in our portfolio must have a commitment to sustainability as it is foundational to protecting and enhancing economic value and long-term resilience. Ignoring sustainability, we believe, degrades the value of our assets and increases the operating and reputational risk of each business.
Every investment in the Jardine Matheson portfolio in which we have a controlling interest must commit to credible emission targets and demonstrate clear progress over that period. This means committing to invest towards reducing the use of fossil fuels and investing in other initiatives which reduce our scope 1 and 2 emissions. It also means a commitment to measure and monitor our scope 3 emissions to ensure our partners and suppliers meet our values in making their own commitments to sustainability. We monitor the year-on-year performance of each company to track progress against their decarbonisation roadmaps.
We do not see sustainability as part of a due diligence checklist, but rather as an essential value all our portfolio companies must commit to improving when becoming part of the Jardine Matheson portfolio.
How does Jardines approach strategic oversight of sustainability across its portfolio?
Sustainability is embedded as part of our normal business reviews and board meetings, no different from capital investment initiatives or operational improvements. Our companies make plans and allocate the resources necessary during their annual budget process to projects that contribute to their decarbonisation roadmaps. Where possible, they adopt technologies that reduce our dependencies on fossil fuels and support climate transition.
Sustainability metrics are also embedded in CEO and executive management team short-term and long-term incentives. This creates a mechanism by which we ensure senior executives deliver upon agreed sustainability objectives annually and over the medium term. We are expanding this incentive structure to all portfolio company leadership teams.
Lastly, we ensure our Boards have independent directors who share our sustainability values and are bringing increasing industry-relevant sustainability experience to our management teams, and we expect them to align with Jardine Matheson to ensure medium-term sustainability objectives are delivered.
How does Jardines engage with its portfolio on sustainability issues?
Sustainability is part of our regular strategic review process with senior executives, both as part of Board Meetings and operational reviews. Additionally, Jardines brings our key CEOs and portfolio sustainability leaders together regularly under a cross-portfolio Sustainability Leadership Council, where we regularly ask industry experts to share the latest sustainability trends shaping the future of business and value creation. The forum allows executives to share insights, gather feedback and discuss common challenges to drive sustainability improvements.
We further work across our portfolio to align on a comprehensive scope 1 and 2 reduction pathway, aggregating initiatives across all Jardine Matheson portfolio companies. This allows our companies to drive not only their individual sustainability initiatives but to help us, as a Group, achieve a common goal of continuing improvements in our portfolio.
Looking forward, how will Jardines prioritise sustainability?
We will continue on our journey to embed sustainability as a core value of every company in the Jardine Matheson portfolio. We are committed to improving transparency in our sustainability reporting and working with our companies on tangible commitments to deliver on their scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction pathways on an annual basis. To support these plans and commitments, we are putting in place the right governance and performance incentives to reinforce accountability and deliver progress.
Ben Keswick
Executive Chairman and Chair of the Sustainability Leadership Council (SLC)
Lincoln Pan
Chief Executive Officer
