Being a leading vertically integrated healthcare platform in Asia, Fullerton Health recognises the importance of having a well-developed Sustainability program. Fullerton Health’s Sustainability Vision is to harness our purpose and shared values of Compassion, Teamwork, Partnership, Innovation and Integrity as we continue to provide Affordable and Accessible care for all in Asia.
We started our journey in 2018 and continue to build a Sustainability framework and roadmap in early 2021 to better reflect our shared values and business strategy. This framework is aimed to provide us with a more structured mechanism and balance in shaping, implementing and monitoring our sustainability strategies on managing our Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) risks and opportunities.
Using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework as a reference, key pillars have been developed and aligned with our shared values as well as the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (“UN SDGs”). This purpose-driven framework solidifies the foundation and rigour to our Sustainability roadmap.
We recognise the imperative of implementing our sustainability strategy across the business to enhance policies and processes, strengthen relations with employees and external stakeholders as well as re-enforce overall accountability. With that, we have established a governance structure that epitomises our approach in achieving Fullerton’s core sustainability objectives.
Following the GRI Materiality Principles, Fullerton Health has decided to focus and prioritise eight Material ESG Factors and align them to the UN SDGs.
For each of the material ESG factors, performance targets have been established to ensure effective monitoring of our commitment towards achieving the objectives of the material components.
Fullerton is aware of the environmental impact that our businesses have. Therefore, we support the circular economy for resource efficiency and responsible management of waste for our patients’ and employees’ safety.
We place importance on proper disposal of hazardous waste and aim for satisfactory outcomes from both our internal audits and inspections conducted by the National Environment Agency. Additionally, we engage qualified and licensed vendors to properly manage our waste.
We intend to reduce paper consumption and carbon footprint by gradually moving towards digitising our records and adopting digital transformation in facilitating paperless transactions between provider, network and payor.
Recognising that people are our invaluable assets, we continuously promote constructive collaborations to encourage corporate citizenship and partnership with our key stakeholders. Being in healthcare, we strongly advocate and promote the wellbeing and safety of our employees, patients and community. And our human capital initiatives include fair employment, training and education in support of equal opportunity and diversity especially for the vulnerable and marginalised groups.
As part of protecting our workforce and community, we collaborate with local governments to be a fundamental player on the national vaccination programs by operating vaccination centres nation-wide. We encourage our employees to be vaccinated to attain herd immunity as well. As a healthcare service provider, we have always prioritised and tracked the implementation of adequate clinical governance processes for compliance and expedient response to work-related injuries.
In our efforts to provide a decent work environment, Fullerton Health adopts fair employment guidelines and implements policies like anti-bribery and fraud, code of conduct and conflict of interest for compliance with local labour laws. Gender diversity is pivotal, and we are gratified to have a well-represented women leadership on our senior management team. We have also established indicators to measure employee performance and career development to ensure that employees are considered the opportunity to grow professionally and receive the appropriate training needed for optimal job performance.
We aspire to be inclusive through the procurement of services by screening our key vendors, monitoring compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct and where plausible, procure from local suppliers.
In bringing quality education to the next generation of change-makers among the healthcare professionals, we partner with locally recognized education institutions and set monetary targets to award scholarships and bursary awards, as well as internships with a career track for the candidates. Fullerton Health also actively participates in social programs, specifically with Agape Connecting People, to provide employment to the disadvantaged, empowering them with an opportunity to reintegrate back into society.
As Fullerton Health operates in developing and developed countries across the Asia Pacific region, we strategically offshore certain activities such as our call centres to low-income per capita countries in the Philippines and Malaysia. In addition, SOPs, clinical guidelines and practices are streamlined to raise the level of competence in developing countries, thus contributing towards the economic growth of the local communities.
We also believe in reducing inequalities in the fraternities we operate in by advocating for the disadvantaged communities to gain access to healthcare. Through the works of our Foundation, partnering with The Global Fund, Fullerton Health has an outreach mobile clinic program in Indonesia and the Philippines, to screen for tuberculosis.
In responding to the pandemic-hit workforce disruption, changing patient experience and rapid digital transformation, we undertake innovative initiatives to strengthen internal workflows and provider/ client-facing systems, adopt fit-for-purpose staffing model, as well as support technological developments. A milestone that we are proud of is the deployment of telemedicine in many of our key operating markets.
With a paramount role in the healthcare ecosystem and influence to deepen healthcare development in this region, we are committed to balancing economic success with social responsibility by offering affordable and accessible care. We embark on these initiatives by tracking annual member spending growth against the annual medical inflation rate, accessibility of patients to our surgeons and specialist clinics in hospitals and satisfactory survey outcomes with our clients, network of clinics and doctors.
In demonstrating our commitment to provide more affordable and accessible treatments, Fullerton Health has allocated funding to develop programmes including promoting for more private companies to participate and contribute towards Accessible and Affordable Care.
With more than half the world’s population in Asia, more Asian participation and perspectives along with transparent communication and open dialogues with stakeholders are needed. In line with this, we have been advocating this agenda at the World Economic Forum in the last three years.
Fullerton Health ensures that our sustainability strategy is firmly grounded in robust governance, policies and processes by embracing strong corporate governance, business ethics and conduct in our business dealings. We strive to balance seizing business opportunities and managing risks by adhering to applicable legal and regulatory requirements especially in the areas of data governance, security and data privacy. In addition, we onboard key suppliers, clients and enterprises with similar corporate values.
Additionally, in maintaining strict compliance with our internal policies as well as local regulations, we do not tolerate lapses on cybersecurity breaches or major complaints relating to our patients’ personal and medical records.
As good stewards of ESG and in keeping our stakeholders engaged with our shared values, we will continue to refine the development and execution of key sustainability aspects for effective implementation and monitoring.
Our three-year roadmap encompasses building inhouse capabilities on pertinent sustainability-related topics and publishing our inaugural sustainability report.
As part of assessing our carbon footprint as well as climate risks and opportunities, we aim to carry out carbon inventory exercise for development of a decarbonisation plan. And in prioritising our risks and opportunities, we will continue to integrate our sustainability efforts into the Group’s enterprise risk management framework for optimal alignment with our business strategy. One of our principal goals is to also establish a fit-for-purpose sustainable finance framework that will be aligned with Fullerton Health’s purpose and commitment to environmental, social and governance responsibility.
