For 2022, one of the main ar­eas of fo­cus for the ANSA McAL board will be that of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, chief le­gal and ex­ter­nal af­fairs of­fi­cer Frances Bain-Cum­ber­batch has said.

“Well in 2022 we are go­ing to be fo­cus­ing more on the area of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and im­prov­ing our risk man­age­ment frame­work and process­es for the group,” Bain-Cum­ber­batch said.

She said this process be­gan last year.

“The par­ent board has for­mal­ly ap­proved the group’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty busi­ness pri­or­i­ties and that is go­ing to be for­malised and rolled out across our sec­tors where our sec­tors will choose their own busi­ness pri­or­i­ties in line with what the board has de­cid­ed would be the group’s busi­ness pri­or­i­ties from a sus­tain­abil­i­ty stand­point and then we are ul­ti­mate­ly aim­ing over a pe­ri­od of time to be able to re­port on those things in a very trans­par­ent man­ner, in a mea­sur­able man­ner so all of our stake­hold­ers are very much aware of what we are do­ing and as no sur­prise one of those busi­ness pri­or­i­ties is in fact cor­po­rate gov­er­nance,” Bain-Cum­ber­batch said.

Bain-Cum­ber­batch made the com­ments dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia as the re­gion­al con­glom­er­ate cel­e­brat­ed win­ning an in­ter­na­tion­al award for its cor­po­rate gov­er­nance.

ANSA McAL was named Best Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance con­glom­er­ate by Lon­don-based or­gan­i­sa­tion Eth­i­cal Board­room.

“The awards recog­nise the out­stand­ing lead­er­ship from boards who have raised the bar to en­sure that strong cor­po­rate gov­er­nance plays an es­sen­tial part in pro­tect­ing and en­hanc­ing long-term val­ue for all stake­hold­ers,” Eth­i­cal Board­room stat­ed.

Bain-Cum­ber­batch said the award was “ac­tu­al­ly in­cred­i­bly un­ex­pect­ed but ab­solute­ly amaz­ing.”

“We are very, very pleased about it, this has been for us an ac­knowl­edge­ment of the work that we have been do­ing to ramp up and im­prove our cor­po­rate gov­er­nance,” she said.

Bain-Cum­ber­batch said cor­po­rate gov­er­nance is not new to the group.

The re­gion­al pow­er­house turned 140 years old last year.

Speak­ing at a stock­hold­ers’ meet­ing last year group chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III said the con­glom­er­ate in­tends to be around for at least 140 years more.

“We re­main the re­gion’s largest glass and plas­tic re­cy­cler. We are tran­si­tion­ing to CNG dis­tri­b­u­tion for our fleets and we con­tin­ue to re­main quite ag­gres­sive on the re­new­able en­er­gy front and are mak­ing deep­er in­vest­ments in­to the Latin Amer­i­ca re­new­able en­er­gy space,” he said.

The gen­e­sis of what is now ANSA McAL start­ed in 1881 when George R Al­ston found­ed Geo R Al­ston & Co which trad­ed in the buy­ing and ex­port­ing of lo­cal pro­duce par­tic­u­lar­ly co­coa.

Bain-Cum­ber­batch said while the con­glom­er­ate was a fam­i­ly-based com­pa­ny moves have been made to shore up any per­ceived de­fi­cien­cies there may have been on the board.

“So what the fam­i­ly the board would have de­cid­ed would have been that we need­ed to evolve in­to a more mod­ern cor­po­rate gov­er­nance struc­ture, a more in­de­pen­dent cor­po­rate gov­er­nance struc­ture, and for us it is a thrill to see that an in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion has no­ticed that,” she said.

Last May Krys­ta Behrens De Li­ma, Nor­man Christie and Vic­ki-Ann As­severo were ap­point­ed to the ANSA McAL board.

“That was ex­e­cut­ed in 2021 but it came about as a re­sult of a prop­er skills and knowl­edge as­sess­ment that was done by the board to de­ter­mine what skills, based on what our strat­e­gy is in the short and long term, what skills would be re­quired on our board and then out of that ex­er­cise cer­tain goals, cer­tain ar­eas of ex­per­tise would have been iden­ti­fied and then we would have searched to re­cruit di­rec­tors to fill that pro­file,” she said.

“This award is not some­thing that we sought or tar­get­ed to re­ceive it is some­thing that was en­tire­ly un­ex­pect­ed but it re­flects an ac­knowl­edge­ment of what we have been do­ing and what we have de­cid­ed to do to de­vel­op as an or­gan­i­sa­tion and evolve as a more mod­ern or­gan­i­sa­tion in terms of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance,” Bain-Cum­ber­batch said.

Bain-Cum­ber­batch said as a cor­po­rate sec­re­tary the award was a tes­ta­ment to the hard work that was done.

“Well as cor­po­rate sec­re­tary you know this from a per­son­al stand­point is a big deal be­cause tra­di­tion­al­ly cor­po­rate sec­re­taries have been seen as peo­ple who just take min­utes, but a cor­po­rate sec­re­tary is ac­tu­al­ly a very strate­gic role,” she said.

“You are a satel­lite con­nect­ing all func­tions of the com­pa­ny and in­ter­fac­ing with the board dri­ving and as­sist­ing the board in mak­ing sure that it com­pletes and car­ries out its gov­er­nance role to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the group for the ben­e­fit not just if the share­hold­ers but all stake­hold­ers in­volved,” she said.

Bain-Cum­be­batch said 2021 can­not be viewed in a vac­u­um but as a com­pendi­um of work done and de­ci­sions made over time.

ANSA McAL is proud of its vac­ci­na­tion rates at the work­place Bain-Cum­ber­batch said.

“We have de­lib­er­ate­ly from the very be­gin­ning fo­cused on vac­ci­na­tion as be­ing the main method of ex­it­ing this pan­dem­ic and re­turn­ing to nor­mal­cy,” she said.

The group’s vac­ci­na­tion rate is over 80 per cent.

“We have to re­alise vac­ci­na­tion is not just about your­self and fam­i­ly, it is about your com­mu­ni­ty, the re­gion, the world.

“Vac­ci­na­tion is not new. I be­lieve it is just a lev­el of mis­in­for­ma­tion that has been al­lowed to per­me­ate the so­ci­ety but the group will con­tin­ue to pro­mote vac­ci­na­tion as the way out of the pan­dem­ic,” she said.

Bain-Cum­ber­batch said ANSA McAL will con­tin­ue to build on it foun­da­tion and mod­ernise the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“We re­alise that we have to keep up with all of our stake­hold­ers and the in­ter­est of our stake­hold­ers, and our po­lices and the way we de­ter­mine how we are go­ing to gov­ern is very much in­flu­enced by what is im­por­tant to the peo­ple and the com­mu­ni­ties and the en­vi­ron­ment in which we op­er­ate. We are very much in­flu­enced by the in­ter­est there. ANSA McAL will be look­ing more out­ward en­gag­ing with stake­hold­ers in a very proac­tive way to have a deep un­der­stand­ing of what mat­ters to them and how we im­pact them and how we can im­prove in the way we in­te­grate with every­one we af­fect,” she said.