Re­gion­al pow­er­house ANSA McAL is repo­si­tion­ing to place En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial, and Gov­er­nance (ESG) prin­ci­ples at the cen­tre of its op­er­a­tions.

This was the an­nounce­ment made yes­ter­day fol­low­ing four days of meet­ings with the re­gion­al con­glom­er­ate's se­nior man­age­ment team at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad.

The Port-of-Spain Ball­room was filled with the se­nior man­agers from all of the mar­kets in which ANSA McAL op­er­ates.

ANSA McAL has been around for 140 years and it is hop­ing to use that lega­cy to chart a way for­ward for a sus­tain­able fu­ture.

"Build­ing on a sta­ble, re­silient foun­da­tion, the Group has made a bold move to grow its busi­ness in step with the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals and on the prin­ci­ples of Sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the Nat­ur­al En­vi­ron­ment, So­ci­etal Well­be­ing and Good Gov­er­nance," ANSA McAL stat­ed.

It is al­so plan­ning to spread be­yond the re­gion and be­come a glob­al play­er.

"Be­ing mind­ful of its proud Caribbean her­itage, the Group will have a strong fo­cus on in­ter­na­tion­al growth and in do­ing so, cre­ate a path­way for Oth­er Caribbean com­pa­nies in ways that will gen­er­ate re­gion­al wealth," it stat­ed.

"At the core of the Group's repo­si­tion­ing strat­e­gy is its vi­sion to har­ness its in­trin­sic Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty and proven re­silience, to build a mean­ing­ful fu­ture for peo­ple every­where," ANSA McAL stat­ed.

This sus­tain­able fu­ture is in line with the group's pur­pose state­ment "In­spir­ing bet­ter choice for a bet­ter world."

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the event, ANSA McAL Group Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III said the con­glom­er­ate is com­mit­ted to sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

But what ex­act­ly does sus­tain­abil­i­ty mean to ANSA McAL?

"Sus­tain­abil­i­ty es­sen­tial­ly for us is the preser­va­tion of our en­vi­ron­ment, be­ing re­spon­si­ble cap­i­tal­ists, in­vest­ing where it makes sense in pre­serv­ing or bet­ter­ing a way of life and as­sur­ing a lev­el gov­er­nance and over­sight to en­sure and achieve that," he said.

Sab­ga said ANSA McAL has sev­er­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives across the group all of which are mea­sur­able.

"In mea­sur­ing them we will be able to com­mu­ni­cate the im­pact that we are hav­ing on the plan­et and so­ci­ety. Our fo­cus in­cludes waste re­duc­tion, wa­ter preser­va­tion, cli­mate im­pact, mod­ern en­er­gy, peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance," he said.

Sab­ga said these are not mere words or "green wash­ing" but rather a ver­i­fi­able long-term com­mit­ment from the con­glom­er­ate.