DELIVERING
SOCIAL VALUE
We believe in creating social and economic value through our businesses.
DELIVERING
We aim to support the development of thriving and resilient communities in the areas in which our divisions operate, through focused SED delivered through strategic programmes and partnerships with key stakeholders. By doing so, we also increase the long-term sustainability of our divisions.
Our priority SDGs
FY24 salient features
Contribution to SED: R32 million (FY23: R24 million)
Contribution to ESD: R75 million (FY23: R74 million)
Preferential procurement (qualifying spend*) on suppliers of B-BBEE Level 4 and higher: 75% (FY23: 77%)
We have a Level 4 B-BBEE rating (FY23: Level 4)
* Only South Africa, excluding imports
OUR COMMUNITIES
Our communities include those that are situated directly next to our operations (‘fenceline communities’) as well as those in the areas in which our businesses operate.
Community risks and opportunities
Five of our biggest sites are situated in four municipalities with deteriorating infrastructure and poor service delivery, which impact the sustainability of our businesses and the quality of life of the communities. These include the Mkhondo and Elundini local municipalities and the Ekurhuleni municipality, where three PG Bison sites are located; the Metsimaholo local municipality, where the Safripol HDPE and PP sites are located; and the Ethekwini metro municipality’s Jacobs district, where Safripol’s PET and Feltex’s sites are located.
Infrastructure and service delivery failures affect the quality of life of the communities and our employees that reside there. Additionally, these failures, together with rising crime, unemployment and inequality are contributing to rising discontent in underserved communities which may result in social unrest that could affect our ability to operate efficiently.
By engaging with communities, understanding their needs and concerns and contributing to community development, we can strengthen our relationships with them, revive rural communities and support a future talent pool.
Our strategic response to community risks and opportunities
Our first imperative is to ensure that our divisions operate in a responsible manner to minimise any potential negative effects on communities. This includes ensuring that we operate in an environmentally and socially responsible manner and adhere to all legislative requirements. Our second imperative is to partner with local communities to create positive social change. Our community engagement is based on the following:
Direct engagement with communities through the community engagement forums: Continued engagement enables us to build and maintain relationships of trust with surrounding communities to understand their needs and concerns. Our three largest divisions, PG Bison, Safripol and Unitrans, have established community forums involving traditional leaders, community leaders, local government, non-governmental, non-profit, public benefit and community-based civil organisations which enable them to manage community relations proactively and address grievances of community members.
Socioeconomic investment and development to support community and social development: We work with several organisations to enhance our community development activities. Our focus is on childhood nutrition, education and community development, including ESD, with the objective of reducing poverty and unemployment. Importantly, some of our manufacturing businesses operate in communities that are affected by unemployment, poverty, poor service delivery and related socioeconomic issues. As many of our employees live in these communities, we are deeply committed to ensuring that they are stable and sustainable.
Municipal partnerships to mitigate the risk of critical municipal services failure in areas where our businesses operate: In 2011, PG Bison partnered with the Elundini local and Joe Gqabi district municipalities under the Business-Adopt-A-Municipality programme and implemented various SED initiatives, which included disaster management, revitalisation of the small towns of Maclear and Ugie, and setting up a furniture factory. This partnership has directly benefited the communities, and indirectly PG Bison’s Ugie operations. Considering the success of this partnership, we are involved in various Small-Town Regeneration (‘STR’) programmes with municipalities in the areas in which we operate and have also adopted the broader BRE framework. The STR and BRE programmes are aimed at supporting municipalities in the provision of basic municipal services, maintenance of existing infrastructure, and investment in new bulk infrastructure to enable municipalities to retain and attract businesses, create jobs, and invest in community development.
SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Our SED spend was R32 million in FY24 compared with R24 million in the previous year, of which 26% was directed to fenceline communities. We have initiated a process to consolidate our SED activities to focus our impact and deliver on our key objectives.
SED CASE STUDIES
KAP sani2c, a partnership between KAP and sani2c, is a three-day mountain bike event that attracts more than 2 000 riders per event and provides permanent and temporary employment for the local community. Sixteen local schools are recipients of the funds raised through entries to the race and sponsorships. The sani2c Community Development Trust, in partnership with the Southern Lodestar Foundation’s Breakfast Programme, feeds almost 2 000 school children daily along the sani2c route.
The Ugie CREATE education programme, launched in 2009, focuses on school infrastructure, learning materials and teacher support for both primary and high school learners in the rural areas of Ugie and Maclear in the Eastern Cape where PG Bison operates. The programme is a collaboration between PG Bison and Infundo, an independent Level 2 B-BBEE social enterprise consultancy specialising in educational development throughout the country. The initiative works with seven schools in the district whose pass rates have improved significantly since the inception of the programme. In the 2023 National Senior Certificate examination, they had an average pass rate of 83.9%, up from 74.8% in 2022. The initiative is also focusing on integrating creches into the programme to ensure that the educational interventions across the child’s whole education journey, from preschool to high school, are aligned. Following the success of the Ugie CREATE initiative, the Mkhondo CREATE initiative was launched in 2021, also in partnership with Infundo. PG Bison is working with Infundo to co-create needs-based activities for the youth in the community that are linked to outcomes with a longer-term impact.
Safe-Hub, the biggest programme PG Bison supports, provides children in the Knysna area with nutrition and access to education from pre-primary to tertiary level. Safe-Hub has a dedicated youth development programme which focuses on engaging youth in sport, education and training pathways to work and leadership. The Safe-Hub facility in Knysna employs 20 people from the local community every year, including 13 young people, who are placed in NQF Level 4 learnerships and exit the programme into local employment. Through its contributions, PG Bison enjoys naming rights of the facility, the PG Bison Knysna Safe-Hub.
PG Bison’s annual community soccer tournament was hosted in Mkhondo and in Ugie during April 2024. We provided food for approximately 4 000 children and community members during these events.
Judea Hope’s programmes focus on vulnerable children in rural areas, under-resourced regions, and informal settlements across the country. They currently run PG Bison’s feeding scheme at eight creches in Ugie and provide early childhood development (‘ECD’) training for creche teachers. As part of our enterprise development initiatives, they train community members in vegetable production in our vegetable tunnels, which supply the creches with fresh produce. This initiative was launched in Mkhondo following a detailed needs analysis and collaboration with Infundo.
Unitrans has a partnership with FoodForward SA, who collect and repackage surplus food from manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers for distribution to ECD centres, women’s empowerment groups and day-care centres, reaching 1 295 at-risk individuals, including 983 under the age of 19. Unitrans maintains the FoodForward SA vehicles on an ongoing basis.
In partnership with INANI Startwell Foundation, Safripol is supplying protein-rich cereal daily to feed children in ECD centres. The programme aims to address childhood stunting, one of the major causes of which is nutritional deficiencies. The cereals are supplied to the schools in rigid containers produced from Safripol’s HDPE polymer. The containers are returned and refilled for subsequent use. The focus areas of the programme are the Durban South Basin and Zamdela in Sasolburg. The programme benefited 2 700 children in FY24 (FY23: 1 100).
The YES programme is a joint initiative between the private sector and government to assist South Africa’s youth to gain work experience through employment placement. In FY24, Safripol placed 210 YES youth in small businesses that are aligned with the circular economy.
PREFERENTIAL PROCUREMENT AND ESD
As a large manufacturing company in South Africa, we strive to have a meaningful impact on the sustainable growth of small businesses, on community development and job creation through our ESD programmes.
Over the past year, we have invested R75 million (FY23: R74 million) in ESD programmes to support small and black-owned businesses. We provided support through areas such as early payment terms, interest-free financing, machinery and tools and training. We are also committed to supporting suppliers with the necessary B-BBEE credentials through preferential procurement. Over the past year, more than 75% of our local procurement of R12.6 billion was directed to suppliers with Level 4 ratings and better.
B-BBEE
We are in compliance with the B-BBEE Act, 53 of 2003 (‘B-BBEE Act’) and the Codes of Good Practice issued under the B-BBEE Act. In addition, the B-BBEE compliance status of some of our divisions is determined with reference to the B-BBEE sector codes applicable in their respective sectors. Our B-BBEE scorecard, which is verified by AQRate, is shown below. View our B-BBEE certificate here.
PG Bison, Safripol and Feltex have Level 3 B-BBEE ratings. Unitrans’ passenger operation has a Level 4 B-BBEE rating and the rest of its South African operations a Level 2 rating. Restonic has a Level 4 B-BBEE rating.