The Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards (AREA) 2023 is pleased to honor 78 outstanding business leaders and enterprises for championing sustainable and responsible business practices. Presented by leading regional NGO Enterprise Asia, the AREA is the most reputable award recognition program recognizing organizational efforts in creating a culture of compassion, integrity, and in being socially responsible corporate citizens. The AREA serves as a badge of excellence to spur further innovation and best-practice sharing for your organization and the world at large.
E.SUN Bank & Union Commercial Bank were among the recipients who were conferred with the Responsible Business Leader, Investment in People, and Corporate Sustainability Awards. Union Commercial Bank (UCB) became a wholly-owned subsidiary through an acquisition by E.SUN Bank in 2017. Whereas the latter is a bank that aims to achieve three goals and has 139 branches in Taiwan and 31 overseas operating sites in 10 countries and regions.
Winner of the Responsible Leadership Award, Joseph Huang, is the Chairman of E.SUN Commercial Bank. Under his leadership, E.SUN is leading in ESG (environmental, social, and governance) management and has been listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index since 2014 as the company with the best performance in Taiwan’s financial industry.
Empathy, understanding, and curiosity are also elements that Joseph Huang values with his people-oriented approach. For example, in promoting inclusive finance, the company first understands the pain points of vulnerable groups such as the elderly, rural areas, and low-income populations in financial services. Joseph Huang pushes the company to actively develop innovative finance and collaborates with cross-industry partners to provide humanized financial services.
Joseph Huang pushes for proactive care for the disadvantaged, sharing microinsurance protection concepts and assisting the public in insurance investments in rural areas, providing basic personal insurance for economically disadvantaged and specific ethnic groups, cooperation with medical institutions to establish dementia-specific and simulation education training, enhancing empathy and understanding of dementia patients, and providing empathetic financial services, realizing the ideal of inclusive finance.
For E.SUN Bank’s Corporate Sustainability Award, the company established a climate change governance structure in accordance with international standards and continually improves its management mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions, climate change risks, and opportunities. In addition to continuously improving energy efficiency, the bank also incorporates climate risk thinking into its business and adjusts its portfolio to a lower-carbon emission structure by financing renewable energy and green buildings, phasing out coal-related industries, and establishing an internal carbon pricing mechanism.
In addition to Net Zero targets, E.SUN Bank also responds to global biodiversity targets, referring to Taiwan’s ‘forest bird species’ and ‘agricultural land bird species’ which are national indicators. The bank strives to promote natural growth recovery before 2030 and realize the Vision of a beautiful homeland.
The Investment in People Award is given to the joint partnership of both E.SUN Bank & Union Commercial Bank. In order to solve the issues of unbalanced development between urban and countryside regions and fading regional industries, E.SUN has actively invested in its fintech development and promoted a one-stop-shop model for financial services. The company has implemented inclusive and friendly financial services, and supported the sustainable development of social enterprise seeds, creating new drivers for economic growth in order to achieve a friendly financial environment.
UCB and E.SUN’s goal is to help 25,000 small and medium-sized enterprises obtain important operational funds by 2025. This joint initiative looks to provide NTD500 billion in loan balances to small and medium-sized enterprises, and NTD113 billion to small enterprises.
About Enterprise Asia
Enterprise Asia is a non-governmental organization in pursuit of creating an Asia that is rich in entrepreneurship as an engine toward sustainable and progressive economic and social development within a world of economic equality. Its two pillars of existence are investment in people and responsible entrepreneurship. Enterprise Asia works with governments, NGOs and other organizations to promote competitiveness and entrepreneurial development, in uplifting the economic status of people across Asia and in ensuring a legacy of hope, innovation and courage for the future generation. Please visit https://www.enterpriseasia.org/ for more information.
About Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards (AREA)
The Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards program recognizes and honors Asian businesses for championing sustainable and responsible entrepreneurship in the categories of Green Leadership, Investment in People, Health Promotion, Social Empowerment, Corporate Governance, Circular Economy Leadership, Corporate Sustainability Reporting, and Responsible Business Leadership. For more information, visit: https://enterpriseasia.org/area/.