Our strategic vision is to be a responsible energy supplier in China delivering superior performance and growth. We take our corporate social responsibilities (CSR) seriously and are committed to implementing our policies and systems across the Group. These include our employee relations, caring for the environment, health and safety, working with our communities and working well with our suppliers and customers.

Employee Relations

Our responsibility as an employer is to ensure that our employees have a safe, secure and fulfilling work environment that allows them to reach their full potential. We have over 16,000 employees in 18 provinces all around China. We are committed to investing in these individuals and to their development through training and helping our employees understand their strengths and weakness and providing the resources to allow them to grow as individuals, both at work and at home. Opportunities are given to all employees at all grades to join on-job training programs provided by Gas Technology Research Institute of China Gas and Management Institute of China Gas. Both institutes were established by the Company with the support from Harbin Institute of Technology and these two institutes provide over 80 training programs covering areas in general management, production safety, market development, customers service, financial management and application of information technology. Through these extensive training and development programs, the Company hopes to ensure that our employees are skillful and fully equipped for the challenges in a fast-changing market and environment.

To sustain a committed and progressive workforce, the Group makes available to its employees a vast array of jobs and a wide range of attractive paths to career advancement, and they are also encouraged to express their career aspirations during their annual performance review. The Group recognizes the importance to treat employees equally, and we are committed to operate fairly at all times and not to permit discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, religion, color, gender or age.

Furthermore, we believe that keeping employees fully informed of the business activities of the Group is an important means to let them feel being cared for. We disseminate information to employees through intranet and websites, face-to-face review meetings, annual conferences and our monthly in-house magazine. We continue to extend the use of our intranet system as an effective channel for communication, despatch of industry policies and news, as well as e-learning.

Caring for the Environment

In addition to being a clean energy provider that contributes to the reduction of pollution of the environment, the Group also wants to set examples for its employees and others to care about environmental protection.

In Hong Kong, we have joined the “Energy Conservation Charter – Suitable Room Temperature”, and have committed to reducing electricity consumption through maintaining an optimal indoor temperature in offices, thereby reducing the emission of carbon dioxide to the environment. Besides, we have replaced all incandescent light bulbs by compact fluorescent lights as this can help reduce energy usage by over 50%. In the areas of paper usage, we encourage our employees to reuse unwanted paper, and have established special arrangements with recycled-paper producers for them to make use of our overdue in-house magazines and packaging waste for conversion into recycled fibres. We have also introduced paper-free delivery of information to our investors by using electronic documents, as well as video or audio conferences instead of physical meetings in order to reduce carbon-fuel travelling.

Health and Safety

Health in the workplace is a major challenge for both the business and society as a whole. We are committed to protecting the health of our people at the workplace and encourage them to stay healthy throughout their careers. A board-base campaign is being conducted to raise awareness of the importance of exercises. During the year, activities such as mountain-climbing competition, badminton contest and the setting up of China Gas Badminton Association, and sport day were organized by the Group and all employees were invited to participate.

Work safety is always the Group’s primary commitment to all employees. We strictly implement and follow the guiding principles of “Safety First, Caution Take”. We develop effective safety procedures, identify areas of responsibility and assign these responsibilities to appropriate individuals in each business location. We encourage our employees to be aware of potential hazards and safe systems of work and operating procedures on all sites in order to avoid unnecessary risks, and assist all employees to understand their responsibilities and statutory obligations, in particular to take reasonable care of themselves, those around them and those affected by their actions. Some of our operating units have received accolades for excellence in safety practices in their respective operating areas.

In terms of safety awareness in local communities, our operating units from time to time educate our customers on the correct use of gas appliances and safety usage of natural gas by holding talks, communicating through radio, television and newspapers, and distribution of promotional materials. We also provide free gas appliances inspection and maintenance services to our customers.

Connecting with the Communities

We recognise the role local communities play in our businesses. We aspire to be a responsible partner in the communities in which we operate. Whether it is through providing employment or purchasing local goods and services, we believe it is our responsibility to support those communities and encourage all our business units to support their local communities, make donation to local charities and community work projects and also make long-term commitments of support.

In addition, through our investment and construction of the natural gas supply systems in cities, the Group is directly involved in the transformation of these cities into modern cities, thereby expediting the pace of modernization and urbanization of these cities.

Our staff actively participate in charity activities in Hong Kong and China, such activities include the fund raising activities of The Community Chest such as the Casual Dress Day, and providing funding for the local service hotlines in the areas that we operate. We also participate in the support of the under-priviledged individuals in the society.

Working Well with Our Suppliers and Customers

The nature of our business entails the procurement of large quantity of equipment, materials and services from our suppliers and service providers. We believe that fostering a long-term working relationship with our suppliers is of equal, if not higher, importance than achieving the lowest cost of supplies. We have established our own procurement website on which suppliers from different parts of the country can post their products and services and the terms thereof. We select suppliers not only in terms of pricing, but also their credibility, reliability, quality of supplies as well as after-sale services. Every supplier will have opportunity to establish business relationship with us if it can meet our qualitative and quantitative criteria. We treat our suppliers with trust, respect and integrity.

In terms of our customers, we pay a lot of attention to their level of satisfaction of our services. Although we are the monopolistic gas suppliers in a city, we never abuse on such status and take our customers’ opinions for granted. We strive to exceed of our customers’ expectations on us, and we monitor our standard of services through regular customers’ satisfaction surveys and personal visits by our customers’ ambassadors so that their feedback on us can be collected and properly dealt with in a timely manner.