Case study: How Compal promotes business honesty and integrity

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2017 Corporate Social Responsibility Report Compal identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, market presence, labour/management relations, product and service labelling, customer health and safety, employee welfare. Among these, promoting business honesty and integrity stands out as a key material issue for Compal.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process s of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Compal engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics Compal engaged with its stakeholders through an online questionnaire, receiving 782 valid questionnaires from various stakeholders.

What actions were taken by Compal to promote business honesty and integrity?

In its 2017 Corporate Social Responsibility Report Compal reports that it took the following actions for promoting business honesty and integrity:

• Implementing ethics policies
• Compal has established a series of internal policies with management procedures such as “Business Integrity Principles”, “Director, Supervisor and Manager Code of Conduct”, “Employee Code of Conduct”, etc., and made them part of employees’ mandatory e-learning. These policies exist not only to guide employees’ daily conduct, but also to give stakeholders a better understanding of Compal’s ethical standards. For customers and suppliers, besides following the RBA (ResponsibleBusiness Alliance) code of conduct, Compal also complies with customer’s CSR requests and is committed to obeying anti-corruption ethical standards. In an attempt to eliminate corrupt behaviour, in addition to Compal’s anonymous complaint channel, Henghao Technology has also created a set of “Ethics Policies” to guide employees’ behaviours. Meanwhile, dedicated personnel have been appointed to handle complaints concerning conduct breaching the ethical/integrity code. Additionally, to promote ethics and integrity in the supply chain, all suppliers are required to sign a “Supplier Integrity Commitment” and refrain from corrupt behaviours.

• Providing a complaint channel
• Compal strictly prohibits employees from taking bribes and has an “Ethics Officer” mailbox in the Taiwan Headquarters, to receive anonymous stakeholders’ complaints about any illegal conduct. All complaints are escalated to Compal’s senior ethics management representative for investigation. According to relevant procedures, Compal will activate practices after transferring the complaints to the responsible units, within 24 hours. In 2017, there were no corruption complaints.

• Organising integrity training courses
• To communicate with employees on the importance of integrity, Compal has been organising integrity training courses covering a wide range of topics that include corporate policies, employee code of conduct, the Personal Information Protection Act, anti-corruption, and mandatory topics required by law. All employees at the Taiwan Headquarters and overseas production centres, are required to complete the relevant training. In 2017, some of Compal’s Board Members also completed 45 hours of CSR and integrity training.

• Promoting fair competition
• To pursue fairness in its business activities in compliance with the Fair-Trade Act, Compal established a programme to promote fair competition and supervises its implementation outcome within each department. Compal is committed to not engaging in unfair competition, and has created a better environment and conditions for fair competition. Compal also avoids complicity, conspiracy, and collusion to disturb the fair competition environment and conditions or damage other operators’ legal rights. In addition, Compal encourages, supports, and protects the social supervision of every organisation and individual towards unfair competition and investigation procedures are implemented, if needed. The Management Department must conduct an immediate investigation whenever receiving suspicion, report, and verification requests of any previously described acts, and announce the investigation result. Legal actions can be taken if necessary. In 2017, there were no relevant violations of law.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 205-2 Communication and training about anti-corruption policies and procedures

2) Disclosure 205-3 Confirmed incidents of corruption and actions taken

3) Disclosure 206-1 Legal actions for anti-competitive behavior, anti-trust, and monopoly practices

Disclosure 205-2 Communication and training about anti-corruption policies and procedures corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Business theme: Anti-corruption

Disclosure 205-3 Confirmed incidents of corruption and actions taken corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Business theme: Anti-corruption

Disclosure 206-1 Legal actions for anti-competitive behavior, anti-trust, and monopoly practices corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Business theme: Compliance with laws and regulations

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Compal, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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