2019 GCSA Great Practice: The seeds of a deep-rooted sustainable hope - Asia Cement Eco-Environment Education Project
Asia Cement has set up an eco-environmental education site at its plant in Hualien, Taiwan. Asia Cement uses this education center to create positive changes in sustainability in Taiwan. This project complies with four United Nations’ sustainable development goals, or SDG’s: Providing quality education on sustainability, creating green, sustainable public spaces, promoting sustainable development and consumption, and protecting biodiversity in parks and mining mountains nearby.
A leisure garden was built at the plant in 2004, following the perspective of the plant to be converted into a park-like plant. This park was transformed into an environmental education site in 2013. Since then, it has offered free visits to the public, and provided lectures and on-site guides. The environmental education includes eco-park visiting, mining mountain visiting and mining area guiding. There is also a website with an “ecological database” full of plants and wildlife from the park. Currently, the park is open to domestic and foreign visitors from schools and other institutions, as well as people from local tribes. A number of 47,652 people have visited the park since 2013. Particularly, a number of 11,743 people visited in 2018. This has successfully exceeded Asia Cement’s goal of providing eco-environmental education to 7,000 people each year.
Asia Cement Eco-Environment Education Project
In addition to providing quality education, the park helps preserve biodiversity. Asia Cement has partnered with academic experts to develop better methods for revegetation and soil preservation on the mining mountains. This work has eventually earned the company not only the “Green Leadership” on the Asia Responsible Enterprise Award in 2018 and 2019, but also recognition from domestic and foreign institutes. The park itself preserves biodiversity through its butterfly and insect habitats, ensuring local species to reproduce. The butterfly exhibit is the largest indoor butterfly park in Taiwan, and its scale is still expanding.
The park and education center provide a positive social, environmental, and economic vision. Surveys given to park visitors show high levels of satisfaction with and recognition of the park’s work. Many indigenous people are hired to work in the park as commentators, explaining the local plants and wildlife connected to their tribal history. Besides bringing jobs to Hualien, Asia Cement helps develop transportation and other infrastructure, such as repairing local houses. The Social Return of Investment (SROI) value is calculated to be 10.65 times the amount invested, demonstrating the park’s positive success. The quantitative benefit generated is NT $75,615,000. These positive results can be contributed to Asia Cement’s efforts to expand the park and its eco-environmental education work, which promotes environmental sustainability domestically and internationally.
Asia Cement Corporation at the Global Corporate Sustainability Forum Award Ceremony in 2019