CLP Sets 2030 Targets for Priority SDGs

Four United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will become the CLP Group's target impact areas leading up to 2030. They include climate action (SDG 13), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), and industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9). These areas are considered as the most relevant to its business strategy.

SDG 13 – Climate Action and SDG 7 – Affordable & Clean Energy

Climate change is undoubtedly one of the most critical environmental-related challenges for the power sector given that it is one of the key sectors contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. One of the solutions for the power sector to address this challenge and to reduce its air pollutant emissions is to provide affordable and clean energy.

CLP's Climate Vision 2050 launched over a decade ago is testimony to how serious it is in tackling the climate change challenge and in 2017, it continued along its journey by updating its Climate Vision 2050 targets, which include:

• new "Energy Transition Targets", which are a set of decadal carbon intensity reduction targets spanning out to 2050, contributing to SDG 13 under CLP's Environment focus area; and
• new “Clean Energy Targets”, which are renewable and non-carbon emitting capacity targets for 2030, contributing to SDG 7 and addressing both CLP's Environment and Economic focus areas, since providing energy is its core business.

SDG 8 – Decent Work & Economic Growth

Decent work, a concept which incorporates contractual working arrangements and terms and conditions of work, is key to attracting and retaining the talent needed for powering sustainable business and economic growth.

Hence, SDG 8 is an important priority goal covering both CLP's People and Economic focus areas. This goal makes specific reference to equal pay for work of equal value, which is a target the company has already set internally to support its gender diversity initiatives. It has also developed a set of targets to help widen the pipeline of females to support its future business strategy:

• for women in leadership, achieve gender balance in leadership positions by 2030, compared to a 2016 baseline of 22%;
• for women in engineering, achieve 30% of its engineers to be females by 2030, compared to a 2016 baseline of 9%; and
• ensure equal pay for work of equal value is maintained in all its businesses; any gender pay equity gap for females is eliminated; and it will meet all relevant local compliance and disclosure standards.

SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure

CLP is an industry player in the energy infrastructure sector and it considers necessary to continually innovate to sustain its business. Its infrastructure is built to support the sustainable development of the communities it operates in, so SDG 9 is deemed an appropriate priority goal for its Economic and Community focus areas.

Although it is a power company that has been constantly innovating over the last century, the quickening pace of change in the past two decades has given rise to the need for additional channels of innovation. Commensurate with the endeavours of its new Group Innovation team set up in 2016, it has begun to explore new potential relevant metrics and targets and will report on them once they have been developed.

To learn more, read the CLP Group's 2017 Sustainability Report.