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MEDIA RELEASE
3 May 2007

Excellence in reporting: Sony and BAT are main winners for ACCA MESRA 2006

ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) announces eleven organisations that have received awards or have been commended for their reports on the environmental, social and wider economic impacts of their activities at the ACCA Malaysia Environmental and Social Reporting Awards  (MESRA) 2006 award presentation ceremony.

Sony EMCS (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd won the Best Environmental Report category while British American Tobacco won the Best Social Report Awards for ACCA MESRA 2006.

For the first time in ACCA MESRA history, the Judges decided to award commendation for first time reporters:  Kualiti Alam Sdn Bhd and Tex Cycle Sdn Bhd, as encouragement for companies who just started reporting on their environmental and social performance. The Judges also awarded a Special Mention – Social Reporting by an NGO to MERCY Malaysia for their exceptional effort in social reporting.

Y Bhg Dato’ Yusli Mohamed Yusoff, Chief Executive Officer of Bursa Malaysia Berhad presented the awards to all the winners. ACCA MESRA 2006 saw a 12% increase of participation with 61 entries; 16 entries for environmental reporting and 45 entries for social reporting category.

In his keynote, Dato’ Yusli stressed that “We should not mistaken CSR practices as acts of charity or philanthropy when in fact, it should be embraced holistically and practiced across several key dimensions, such as workplace, marketplace, community and environment. Effective adoption of CSR has the twin effects of improving both short term and long term corporate performance.”

“Companies that have embraced CSR have found real and significant competitive advantages in the form of improved financial performance, enhanced reputations, an increased ability to attract and retain quality workforce, more effective risk management and attractiveness to increasingly sophisticated institutional investors. In short, CSR builds tangible business value for companies that have embraced its concepts fully.”, he adds.

ACCA MESRA 2006 in its fifth cycle was first introduced in Malaysia in 2002 with the aim to encourage the uptake of sustainability (CSR) reporting among companies in Malaysia. Through the Awards, businesses are encouraged to report on the impact of their business operations to environment and society they operate in. This initiative is voluntary as CSR reporting, unlike financial report, is not mandatory.

YBhg Dato’ Khalid Ahmad, President of ACCA Malaysia Advisory Committee added that, “Global trends and practices show that CSR reports are more integrated with business processes, with strong linkages to risk and brand management, employee engagement and commitments to ethical practices.”

“The Malaysian experience also shows an overall improvement in the quality of disclosures with the inclusion of policies and indicators on environment impacts, social contributions and activities. The majority of the reports submitted for MESRA 2006 Awards are informative, though reports using global standards and external verification are still few in numbers,” he continues.

ACCA has promoted greater transparency in the reporting of organisations' social and environmental impacts for over fifteen years. ACCA is involved in reporting awards in more than 20 countries in Europe, Africa, North America/Canada and the Asia Pacific region. ACCA Awards around the world reward companies for excellence in environmental, social and sustainability reporting. The aim of the Awards is to identify and reward innovative attempts to communicate corporate performance on environmental, social and sustainability performance.

The Awards is endorsed by Bursa Malaysia Berhad, The Department of Environment (DOE) and Malaysian Institute of Integrity.

Full list of winners:

Environmental Report Category

Best Environmental Report
Sony EMCS (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd

1st Runner-up, Best Environmental Report
Shell Malaysia

2nd Runner-up, Best Environmental Report
Alam Flora Sdn Bhd

Best Environmental Reporting in an Annual Report
Shell Refining Company (Federation of Malaya) Berhad

Commendation for First Time Reporter – Environmental Report
Kualiti Alam Sdn Bhd
Tex Cycle Sdn Bhd

Social Reporting category

Best Social Report
British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Berhad

Best Social Reporting in an Annual Report
YTL Corporation Berhad

1st Runner-up, Best Social Reporting in an Annual Report
Nestlé (Malaysia) Berhad

2nd Runner-up, Best Social Reporting in an Annual Report
IJM Corporation Berhad

Special Mention - Social Reporting by an NGO
MERCY Malaysia

For further information, please contact:

Ainul Ibrahim
Manager, Corporate Communication
+(603) 2713 5051 ext:17,019-2869068
ainul.ibrahim@my.accaglobal.com

Notes to editor

1. ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is the largest and fastest-growing international accountancy body with 296,000 students and 115,000 members in 170 countries.

2. ACCA has been involved in environmental and social reporting awards globally for 15 years –they were developed with the aim of raising the standard of sustainability reporting and to encourage companies to be more transparent and to provide greater disclosure of the environmental and social impacts of their business operations.

3. ACCA MESRA core judging criteria for the awards are completeness (40%), credibility (35%) and communication (25%). http://www.accaglobal.com/publicinterest/activities/subjects/sustainability/awards/

4. For full list of winners and comments from the Judges – please refer to the Judges Report 2006.

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