HTC 2010 Annual Report Download - page 35

68 2 0 1 0 H T C A N N U A L R E P O R T 69
Corporate Governance
environment, and professional employee assistance
programs. Our employees understand our commitment
to their welfare. Participation in HTC's family day
by employees and their families also helps promote
identification with Company values and understanding
of the Company's commitment to public interest,
health, and the environment.
Safety and Health Management
The OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety
management standards and HTC workplace accident
prevention plans are the key elements of our eorts
to prevent the possible occurrence of workplace
accidents. Key points of implementation include
observing health and safety laws and regulations,
identifying hazards as a means of lowering risk, creating
standards for management of harmful and dangerous
substances, providing information on health and safety,
and implementing management of contractors. All
employees participate in the programs for reduction
of health and safety risks. Emergency incidents caused
by human error or natural disasters, including incidents
such as fire, explosions, typhoons, accidental substance
releases, mechanical equipment injuries, contagious
diseases, or earthquakes, are managed through
prevention in-advance, response measures during the
incident, and critical appraisal and feedback after-the-
fact. In addition, HTC regularly conducts emergency
response drills and firefighting exercises to ensure that
the impact of any accident on employee safety and
Company assets is minimized.
HTC has established a response organization at
the corporate level for major infectious diseases
to ensure proper handling of any suspected cases.
Implementation of the response plan is outlined below:
> The Environment, Health and Safety Committee
meets regularly, focusing on the environmental, safety,
and health projects under implementation during
the given quarter. During the meetings, committee
members and HTC department representatives
hear reports on issues such as achievement of
improvement goals, analyses of accidents, employee
health promotion, implementation of environment
projects, and the results of testing carried out in
employee work environments.
> Ever since its founding, HTC has undertaken risk
assessments that target its production processes,
equipment, and use of chemical products. It adopts
measures necessary on the basis of the assessment
results in order to reduce accidents caused by
processes, equipment, or working environments, and
to reduce harmful exposure to chemical products.
Measures include:
• Chemical substances management
• Regular inspections of dangerous machinery and
equipment
• Employee education, training, and guidance,
including general labor safety and health related
education and first-aid training.
• Regular compilation and statistical analysis of
accidents occurred.
• Notice and explanations in relation to hazardous
conditions and dynamic management of the work
area at irregular intervals.
Creating a friendly workplace
HTC provides its employees with a variety of services,
including a convenience store, coee shop, travel
agency, health center and resident physician, fitness
center, outdoor multi-sport playing field, game area,
massage station, and library. To meet the diverse needs
of employees, it has also actively expanded green
spaces, designed facilities for easy access by workers
and visitors with physical disabilities, and provided
breast feeding rooms for mothers.
In addition to providing a comfortable and friendly
work environment as described above, HTC is also very
concerned about measures closely related to the lives
and well-being of its employees, such as providing
appropriate air quality control and lighting in work
areas, to ensure that its employees can work in the best
possible environment.
Healthy work environment
In order to provide a healthier work environment for its
employees, HTC has set up a health center to provide
employee health care, wellness promotion, health
management, and related consulting. Regular check-
ups are provided (new employee physical exams,
yearly exams, and special exams). Health management
includes setting up basic health data files, follow-up
exams and tracking for reported problems, analysis
of yearly check-up data, management of chronic
conditions, and interviews and follow-up on special
conditions. Other services provided to help safeguard
employee health include first-aid training, health
care provided through consultation with a resident
physician, prevention of occupational illnesses, epidemic
prevention, and sharing of health education information.
Lifestyle diseases are usually the result of a buildup of
long-ignored danger signals. HTC's health center works
together with other health care providers to help track
and provide diagnosis and treatment to employees
belonging to high-risk groups, and assists employees
with prevention and management of any such
conditions through accurate understanding and lifestyle
changes. In addition, with facilities such as the health
center, library, fitness center, massage rooms/stations,
and multi-sport playing field, HTC also provides
employees with outlets for relieving pressure so that
they can develop the habit of exercising and taking care
of their own well-being. HTC also creates a smoke-free
working environment, providing information on giving
up tobacco and activities for smokers wanting to quit.
Employee assistance programs
Many employees in the modern workplace experience
psychological burdens arising from the fast pace of
life or the pressures of their lives, families, or work
obligations. Through a program oered in cooperation
with the Hsinchu Lifeline, HTC provides its employees
with opportunities for professional psychological
counseling while ensuring that they receive all the
necessary guarantees of privacy. Regular and irregular
counseling services are arranged and informative
classes available to all employees in the areas of work
and career, family and relatives, relationships, and
physical and psychological stress. Classes include
awareness promotion, department head consultations,
sensitivity training for entry-level managers, and
physical and psychological stress-relief groups to help
reduce the negative impact of work-related stress.
Family day
Every year, HTC invites employees and their families
to participate in family day activities to promote
family values and help employees and their families
understand HTC corporate culture and values. On
family day, employees and their families are invited
to participate in enjoyable activities and share in the
Company's accomplishments. The theme of the 2010
family day was "green life", with activities centering on
HTC's three principles of "public interest, health, and
the environment." The "health" aspect was emphasized
through an event emphasizing love for walking: "6000
steps a day brings health one step at a time." This event
engaged the interest of employees, and during the
course of 3 months, 243 employees from 10 dierent
departments participated, logging a total of 69,228,000
steps.
Human rights guarantees
HTC has adopted non-discriminatory hiring and
management rules that respect the ethnicity, gender,
and beliefs of its employees. It has also instituted an
equal pay for equal work policy, and provides wages,
compensation, and welfare benefits competitive with
the marketplace.
To ensure proper management and prevent exploitation
or unequal treatment of foreign workers, HTC enters
into contracts directly with intermediary companies
supplying foreign labor as a guarantee of their rights
and interests. Medical checkups are also provided with
the same frequency and covering the same items as
local workers to help guarantee the health of foreign
workers.
3. Environmental protection
In addition to having obtained ISO 1400 certification
for environment management, HTC also takes the
initiative in observing local environment-related laws
and regulations in carrying out related environmental
work. It also actively promotes energy-saving and
waste-reduction through measures such as replacing
traditional lighting with energy-saving T5 and LED
lighting fixtures, introducing water-saving devices and
recycling and reusing rainwater.
HTC has placed eective controls on the use of air-
conditioning systems, its dormitories use heat pumps
in place of natural gas, and waste is also separated for
recycling. Since 2008, in response to global concerns
about greenhouse gases, it undertook an inventory
of its carbon emissions and actively assessed related
carbon reduction strategies. Its goal is to help fulfill
its responsibility as a corporate citizen by reducing
emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
In research and development of green products, HTC
emphasizes each phase of a product's life, from its
design, manufacture, use, up through the end-of-life
to find new ideas for eco- friendly product design. The
thinking behind HTC's eco-friendly product designs
extends from the end-of-the-pipeline treatment directly
back to the initial design stages, using design concepts
centered around low toxicity, energy eciency, and
recyclability to develop a variety of new, greener
products.
Measures to improve energy savings and energy-saving
promotion
During their construction, both production facilities
and oces incorporated water- and electricity-
saving design concepts. Measures to improve energy
conservation continue to be implemented during
operation. HTC also continues to promote measures for
conservation of water and electricity and environmental
protection, which are described briefly below:
• Greening the area around its facilities through
landscaping and tree planting to help reduce
carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.
• Installation of water treatment facilities to reduce
release of polluted water.
• Using recycled water for irrigation in green
landscape projects and for washroom flushing.
• Creating a rainfall storage reservoir to collect, filter,
and use rainwater.
• Installation of reduced-flow faucets in break rooms,
shower rooms and restrooms and use two-stage
flushing systems to reduce unnecessary water use.
• Promoting and enhancing reduction of ordinary
waste and sorting of recyclable waste.
• Frequency converters are added to motors and
pumps to help save energy.
Greenhouse gases inventory management
HTC is actively carrying out its responsibility as a
corporate citizen to protect the Earth's environment.
In line with implementation of the guidance plan
for greenhouse gas reduction by the Industrial
Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic
Aairs, HTC implements inventories of the sources and
volumes of its greenhouse gas emissions in accordance
with IISO14064-1 standards.
• Inventorying greenhouse gas emissions allows
better understanding of energy use and is helpful in
establishing energy-saving strategies.
• At the beginning of each year, HTC implements
inspection of its greenhouse gas inventory by a
certification agency and recieves an inventory
certificate.
• HTC discloses information on its greenhouse
gas emissions each year through the Taiwan
Environmental Protection Agency's National
Greenhouse Gas Registration Platform and
information disclosure through international
nonprofit organizations.
Greenhouse gases are not currently listed as statutory
air pollutants in Taiwan, and HTC currently has no
investment to directly measure the emissions of
those gases. It primarily makes use of the emissions
coecient method applied by the majority of
organizations in Taiwan, and applies the chemical
mass balance method as a secondary method. HTC's
2008 greenhouse gas emissions results, focusing
primarily on the organizational boundary of its Taoyuan
headquarters, showed that electricity use was the main
source of emissions, which amounted to about 21,000
metric tons. Extending the organizational boundary
to include all HTC Taiwan oces as well as its Taoyuan
production facility in 2009, initial estimates placed its
volume of greenhouse gas emissions at 30,000 metric
tons. The expansion of the Taoyuan facilities in 2010
correspondingly altered the organizational boundary,
causing total greenhouse gas emissions to increase to
34,800 metric tons. Going forward, HTC will undertake
further measures to reduce greenhouse gases in
anticipation of the introduction of the ISO 50001
energy management standards.
Eco-friendly products
In research and development of eco-friendly products,
early 2000 marked the introduction of design process
in which each stage of design, manufacture, use, and
even the end of product life cycle were scrutinized to
find new room for eco-friendly design. The thinking