DP WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE REPORT 2021
19
UN SDGs
UNGC PRINCIPLES • Principle 1 • Principle 2 • Principle 7 • Principle 8
COVID-19 had a huge impact on the number of education beneficiaries reached, with a large number of projects being delayed until 2022 and causing national school closures for weeks and sometimes months. Many schools restricted field trips, extra-curricular activities and external speakers visiting for large parts of the school years across all regions. In 2021, we reached around 32,000 student beneficiaries through our education programmes, compared to the 200,000 targeted. Of those we did reach, we maintained a consistent gender divide with 52% female and 48% male, across the 76 projects on education globally. In terms of volunteering, we recorded 43 volunteering initiatives across 40 Business Units. Over 2,100 employees volunteered to contribute approximately 10,000 working hours. Our global network of Sustainability Champions ensures the ‘Our World, Our Future’ strategy is interpreted and implemented at a regional/local level across our business and serves as the catalyst for implementing our community strategy at a local level. Over 30 of our champions are Certified Community Practitioners by B4SI. During this year we also hired our first Community Investment Manager to develop and support the growth of the community strategy and this has enabled us to take on more and larger global partnerships than we have ever before.
In 2021, we also launched a new portfolio of partnerships to complement our local approaches across the community strategy. These include the ZSL, The Maiden Factor and the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots programme (see Education section on page 32 and 33 for details on The Maiden Factor and the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots).
In 2022, we aim to expand our programmes by increasing our investment across the community themes and leverage our existing partnerships to drive community impact. This will entail expanding into new partnerships to support women equality including digital divide in education. We will also develop a training programme to support upskilling efforts of our global Sustainability Champions. We view community engagement as a long-term commitment, in line with our ambition to change what’s possible, moving beyond the scope of community investment to include emerging areas such as ‘Business Innovation for Social Impact’ and ‘Procurement for Social Impact’. These two new routes demonstrate social impact whilst also meeting commercial objectives, and our social innovation looks at developing and implementing solutions to solve social or environmental issues.
Throughout 2021, we also sought to increase reporting of community
impacts against the UN SDGs, and were able to support over 5,000 women, across 43 women empowerment projects, and reach over 30,000 students through our community education projects. This year, we developed a new Charity Partnerships Policy, to set out DP World’s approach to Group-wide charity partnerships including cash, in kind and pro-bono support and create a governance structure to support the Charity Committee. DP World is now well positioned to prioritise and direct its community contributions to projects and organisations that align with its sustainability goals and the UN SDGs.
REGIONAL CHAMPIONS Coordinating efforts with Head Office are our team of Regional Sustainability Champions, who provide a key link to our global network of Sustainability Champions. Through regular communications they enable us to maintain strategic alignment and support our community projects globally.
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