What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Minor identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, food and service safety, customer relationship management, good corporate governance and anti-corruption. Among these, promoting sustainability among its suppliers stands out as a key material issue for Minor.

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 reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process 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 Minor engages with:

To identify and prioritise material topics Minor engaged with its stakeholders through the following channels: 

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Customers	·      Face-to-face interactions ·      Customers engagement surveys, calls to customers support centres, emails to customers contact points ·      Interactions and feedback through social media, mobile applications and live chats ·      Monthly market research surveys ·      Monthly and quarterly brand surveys and audits ·      Dialogues, networking sessions and company visits ·      Events, exhibitions and fairs
Employees	·      Annual employee engagement surveys, performance appraisals, and individual development plans ·      Regular dialogues and engagement sessions: “Appreciation Week” in hotels, “Afternoon Tea Session” with CEO for new Minor Hotels employees, manager meetings and conferences, weekly breakfast, annual staff parties, Townhalls ·      Regular webinars, trainings and site visits ·      Regular newsletters and intranet updates ·      Regular department meetings, company activities and events ·      Internal channels for employee complaints and whistle blowing ·      Student internship programmes and Student Satisfaction Survey for student interns ·      CSR and sustainability – related activities for fostering social responsibility mindset
Shareholders, Investors, and Creditors	·      Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) ·      Regular Investor Relations events, site visits, and road shows ·      Quarterly and other scheduled analyst meetings ·      Meetings and dialogues with financial institutions and bondholders on financial needs and business status ·      Regular press releases website and shareholder email updates
Business Partners	·      Regular meetings ·      Bi-monthly Update by GM to franchisees ·      Quarterly regional meetings with franchisees ·      Annual (domestic & international) Franchise Conferences ·      Company events, CSR activities, sustainability project, annual survey ·      Conferences and meetings with brand principals ·      CEO and senior management communications with hotel owners, joint venture partners and other business partners ·      Hotel development team interactions and conferences for hotel owners ·      Annual Minor Awards event
Suppliers	·      Regular meetings and site visits/audits ·      Regular supplier training programmes and engagement activities ·      Annual Supplier Conference ·      Continuous supplier surveys
Communities	·      Regular site visits and meetings with community leaders ·      Engage with community members through job offering/ sourcing and other community development activities ·      Member of municipal or community committee
Media	·      Press releases, interviews and meet-the-press events ·      Integrated communication approach both offline and online media
Government	·      Regular ministry meetings and government events including on-site visits ·      Committee member of government-initiated projects ·      Executives’ participation in government seminars as speakers or lecturers ·      Participle in industry or location – based associations which communicates to different government units
Non-Governmental Organisations	·      Regular NGO visits, workshops, seminars, partnership meetings, emails and other correspondences

What actions were taken by Minor to promote sustainability among its suppliers?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Minor reports that it took the following actions for promoting sustainability among its suppliers:

• Uplifting the supply chain management (SCM) practice
• Minor continues its efforts to uplift its supply chain management (SCM) practice by enhancing Minor Food and Minor Hotels SCM teams’ knowledge in sustainable supply chain. In 2019, Minor invited speakers from reputable peer companies to share practices on value chain traceability and non-tier 1 supplier management. A workshop was arranged for 33 Thai SCM staff who were involved in procurement, food safety and quality audit and Corporate Sustainability staff who oversaw sustainability audit. Minor Food’s supply chain and project management teams organised the Partners Conference, which was attended by 468 suppliers and contractors. The primary objective of the conference was to share Minor Food’s business direction and its implication for sustainable partnership. The conference highlighted the key actions to be implemented in SCM and project management functions and concluded with Minor Food Partner Awards celebration.

• Conducting supplier audits
• In 2019, Minor’s SCM and Corporate Sustainability team prioritised Thailand local Tier 1 food & packaging suppliers by Minor’s spending, criticality to its business, and substitution availability. They selected the top 18% of this group to be assessed on sustainability risk. Only two suppliers were initially identified as high-risk suppliers. However, after discussions with the SCM team, the Corporate Sustainability team embarked upon on-site audits of 23 high-risk and medium-risk suppliers and 2 low-risk suppliers to ensure their compliance to local environmental, occupational health and safety, and human rights regulations. Minor also undertook the second-year follow-up audits on 22 of 34 critical suppliers. The audits of the remaining critical suppliers were postponed to early 2020 due to suppliers’ unavailability. All audited suppliers with identified gaps have corrective action plans with an appropriate timeframe.

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

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria

2) Disclosure 308-2 Negative environmental impacts in the supply chain and actions taken

3) Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria

4) Disclosure 414-2 Negative social impacts in the supply chain and actions taken

 

Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria does not correspond to any SDG.

 Disclosure 308-2 Negative environmental impacts in the supply chain and actions taken does not correspond to any SDG.

Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

Disclosure 414-2 Negative social impacts in the supply chain and actions taken corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

 

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

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Minor, 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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