Swire Pacific’s Sustainable Development efforts

Swire Pacific is a Hong Kong-based international conglomerate with a diversified portfolio of market-leading businesses engaged principally in property, beverages and aviation, as well as new areas of growth such as healthcare.

Sustainable development (“SD”) is a core principle for Swire Pacific. It invests in SD because it is the right thing to do, and because it supports the creation of long-term shareholder value through innovation and improved efficiency.

Long-term thinking and the responsible stewardship of valuable resources drive every aspect of the business, from daily operations, strategic planning and investment decisions to staff care, community involvement and environmental management.

The SwireTHRIVE sustainable development strategy provides a group-level framework that facilitates collaboration among our operating companies with a view to achieving common goals. It helps us to communicate more clearly what we stand for and what we do. It comprises five priority areas (Climate, Waste, Water, People and Communities) where, as a group, we aim to mitigate operational risk and build long-term resilience for our businesses by improving standards and efficiency, and by innovation.

The Case ​

Sustainability-related communications can be quite challenging for three reasons. Firstly, organisations are striving to raise the profile of their SD efforts and achievements, making it difficult to stand out in a crowded market. Secondly, many of Swire Pacific’s businesses are quite technical hence some elements of our sustainability efforts might not be easily understood by the general public. Thirdly, it is imperative that our communications convey the authenticity of our SD efforts, highlighting how they have a genuine impact on reducing emissions resulting from our operations.

We’d therefore like to invite you to propose an overarching strategy and an executable action plan to raise public awareness about Swire Pacific’s SD efforts, over a three-year time horizon. The objective is twofold: promoting sustainability practices to the wider community and strengthening Swire Pacific’s business reputation in upholding sustainability values and principles.

Please follow these steps in developing your proposal:       
1) Identify key messages and target audiences       
2) Propose how to raise public awareness of the importance of some or all of the five SwireTHRIVE key areas, and how these can create an impact on the community without deploying an intensive marketing and communication campaign       
3) Propose ways to evaluate the level of success during or after the strategy has been enacted