MSCI updated the report on ESG rating for E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控). E.Sun received an “AA” rating for the fourth consecutive year, the longest streak among peers in Taiwan. The AA rating is also the highest among Taiwanese financial institutions. In this year, E.Sun has been listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index for the seventh year in-a-row, and FTSE4GOOD emerging market index for the fourth year in-a-row.
MSCI ESG Ratings is available for more than 8,700 companies included in MSCI indexes. Over 200 experienced research analysts assesses thousands of data points across 35 ESG Key Issues, such as climate change, human resource, and corporate governance. Companies are rated on a AAA-CCC scale relative to the standards and performance of their industry peers. The rating is included into factors of investment decisions by many institutional investors.
This year, 192 constituents of MSCI ACWI Index in Banks sector were rated. E.Sun has scored high in more than half of the key issues, especially in Human Capital Development and Privacy & Data Security. The rating report also pointed out that E.Sun has shown good progress in Financing Environmental Impact. Meanwhile, E.Sun has actively incorporated climate change risk into long-term business strategy and developed policies to promote green finance, responsible investment/lending, and carbon-neutral credit card. On the other hand, the analysts also provided recommendations for events such as the case of misconduct of an ex-financial-advisor. It is advised to implement measures to enhance risk management capability.
“The recognition represents both honor and responsibility for E.SUN,” E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) chairman Joseph Huang (黃男州) said. “E.Sun will continue to focus on safeguarding interests of all stakeholders alongside its business growth.” Huang said that E.Sun hopes to create more value for society through persistent efforts to improve on its inadequacies. E.Sun has carried out a thorough self-examination and sought for improvement in a responsible manner to strengthen a disciplined culture of risk management, the company said.
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Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last