21 September 2022

To our stakeholders:

I am pleased to confirm that ATHENASIA CONSULTING LIMITED reaffirms its support of the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact in the areas of Human Rights, Labour, Environment, and Anti-Corruption.

In this annual Communication on Progress, we describe our actions to continually improve the integration of the Global Compact and its principles into our business strategy, culture, and daily operations. We also commit to sharing this information with our stakeholders using our primary channels of communication.

Sincerely yours,

Laurent TIMMERMANS
Founder / Managing Director

We are a fiduciary/ management consulting firm involved with small entrepreneurs. We are not involved in businesses that are at high risk of Human rights abuse. We don't directly nor indirectly (through the supply chain) do anything against human rights.

However, we have stated in our code of ethics (and on our website) that:

1. We refuse to do business with people involved in all forms of slavery (including the trafficking of children, debt bondage, forced and compulsory labour, and the use of children in armed conflict; The use, procuring, or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic purposes)

2. We do not discriminate on any basis:
"We do not make any difference based on gender. Everybody is given an equal chance to develop and grow according to their skills and ambition. We do not discriminate in function of age, gender, or ethnicity. We only want people that align with our values.
Nevertheless, we don’t do any kind of “positive discrimination” to try to keep a ratio of male/female balanced or to make sure there are at least 50% women in leadership positions. As we believe this kind of practices are unfair and counterproductive."

1) We are a service company therefore work is fairly “safe”, we make our employees as comfortable as possible with suitable quality material to perform their work (high-end recent computers, ergonomic chairs, pleasant working conditions…).
2) We also provide facilities for work-life balance. 5 day-work (our industry standard is 5.5day work), work from home, no need for a medical certificate to justify sick leave…
3) We never got any issue of harassment or abuse within the company in our 10 years' of existence. But we are a small structure of 25 staff, most are working from home. Only 7 of them are working physically in the Hong Kong office.
4) Protect workers from workplace harassment, including physical, verbal, sexual, or psychological harassment, abuse, or threats
5) Ensure workers are provided with safe, suitable, and sanitary work facilities.

For us, the main focus is not to do bad things as we are not involved with that anyway but to make sure our staff grows happier. We measure our staff satisfaction every 6 months through an engagement survey.

I own a small fiduciary not a coal mine, nor a manufacturing company. So, this is not an important issue for us because "of course, we won't use child labour or forced labour".

1) We control our entire supply chain. All our activities are in-sourced.
2) We always pay above market. Since 2020, we have run a regular salary benchmark. 100% of our full-time staff earns more than the median salary.
3) In Hong Kong, our university part-time interns are paid average of 100HKD/H (HK minimum wage is HKD37.5/hr)
4) In the Philippines, the salaries range between PHP 15,000 and PHP 50,000 (which is above the benchmark for similar positions there). While the minimum salary in the Philippines is PHP 316 to PHP 537 a day depending on the state for 2022. Even at PHP 537, this corresponds to PHP 10,740 per month. Basically half our lower salary.
5) Our staff can attend training that is reimbursed by the company.
6) In HK we are a “Caring Company” since 2017.

We don't have any measurements for this as it is really a non-issue for us. We have no legal case, really low staff turnover, and none of the things mentioned above. As a small company, we don't see the point to pay an auditor to run an SA8000. We pay way above minimum wage, we pay above-median salary, and we are running benchmarks from time to time to make sure we play well.

The only problem is the gender distribution: We have much more women than men. 3 men versus 23 women. Which is only 15% men. We don't plan to take any action about it because this is mainly due to the industry which attracts mostly female profiles. We enjoy diversity so we have a mixed demographic with Chinese, Filipinos, Europeans, Africans, South Asians... We also have a diversity of religions and sexual orientations, but we don't hold any statistics because we don't care.
Some of the "Implementation numbers could be used as measurement such as:

1. 100% of our full-time staff earns more than the median salary.
2. In Hong Kong, our university part-time interns are paid 100HKD/H (HK minimum wage is HKD37.5/hr)
3. In the Philippines, the salaries range between PHP 15,000 and PHP 50,000 (which is above the benchmark for similar positions there). While the minimum salary in the Philippines is PHP 316 to PHP 537 a day depending on the state for 2021. Even at PHP 537, this corresponds to PHP 10,740 per month. Basically half our lower salary.
4. Certificate “Caring Company” Award for the 5th consecutive year.

As a service company, our initial impact on the environment is limited, however, we always have been attempting to reduce our emissions, sort our waste, reduce travel, work from home to keep a small office footprint, buy sustainably sourced paper, give our old furniture to give them a second life instead of disposing of them...
We also used cloud technology to reduce the use of paper and encourage our clients to work with cloud solutions too such as Xero or QuickBooks for their accounting. However, the cloud requires data centres that require electricity, therefore, we are unsure whether this move is having a positive impact or not.

For the last 5 years we have been planting trees through an organization in Madagascar (The Eden Project), every year we plant 10 trees for every active client.

In 2021, we went through a carbon audit and bought a certificate to become CO2 neutral and "officially" compensate for our emissions. We will nevertheless continue to plant trees therefore we are now carbon negative. Capturing more carbon than we emit.

1) We are “Officially” carbon neutral since 2021.

2) However, we are planting trees through the Eden project since 2018, and we have been capturing more CO2 than we emit.

3) Besides Carbon Neutral we also participate in the following initiatives: Hong Kong local organizations (i.e. EbnergyWiSe, Wastewi$e, and Hong Kong Green Organization).

1) CO2 emissions: Carbon negative (as neutral + plant trees).

2) Tree planted to date: 20,000+ trees.

3) Certificate awarded for paper/plastic (EnergyWi$e, Wastewi$e, and Hong Kong Green Organization Certification).

4) Certificate “Caring Company” Award for the 5th consecutive year.

Once more this has little relevance to us, we don't work in an industry such as pharmaceutical or mining known for including corruption in its business model. We don't use bribes and don't receive them.

Nevertheless, under the same lexical field of the word corruption. As a TCSP (Trust and Company Services Provider) Licenced company in Hong Kong, we contribute to fighting against money laundering, financial crime, and financing of terrorism.

1) We do have a TCSP license: Trust and Corporate Services Providers since 2018. This license requires us to run background checks on our clients' prior onboarding and on a yearly basis to make sure they are not on the list of sanctioned individuals.

2) Furthermore, we have to carry on transaction monitoring to ensure they do not carry suspicious businesses involving illegal activities, money laundry, or financing of terrorism.

1) TCSP Licence audited and renewed in 2021 (expires in 2024).

2) No suspicious client or transaction was identified in 2021-2022.