Message from the Chairman

Dear stakeholders,

COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyday life in 2020. It triggered a global recession, affected the ways we work and consume. Everlight Chemical has been negatively impacted as well. Revenue dropped by nearly 20% and profit went down by 40%. However, with good grace, all employees and their families have remained safe, and we have been able to stand strong together.

Chairman of Everlight Chemical – James Chen

This Sustainability Report is morphed from previous CSR Reports in response to our stakeholders’ shifted attention from corporate social responsibility to sustainable development in three key dimensions: Environmental Sustainability, Social Responsibility, and Corporate Governance, short named ESG. as well as the authority’s expectation in “Corporate Governance 3.0 – Sustainable Development Roadmap”. Everlight Chemical’s “Ethical Management and Corporate Social Responsibility Committee” (CSR Committee) has been reorganized as “Sustainable Development and Ethical Management Committee” (ESG Committee in short) at the same time.
Below are the highlights for these three ESG dimensions, providing our stakeholders with a snapshot of the efforts made by Everlight Chemical in 2020.

Environmental Sustainability
We have achieved significant results in water & energy conservation and carbon reduction.
Our total water withdrawal was 3% less than the previous year. Water recycled and reused was 410 million liters, translated to 40% of water savings, improved from 39% in 2019. Energy consumption was 8% lower, representing a saving of 624 kWh and carbon emission reduction of 319 tons. Additionally, Everlight Chemical developed 30 new eco-friendly products in partnership with downstream industries. Furthermore, we sponsored the Everlight Chemical Green Chemistry Thesis Awards administered by the Chemical Society Located in Taipei to encourage university teachers and students to engage in green chemistry research.

Social Responsibility
All our colleagues pulled together to weather the storms of COVID-19. Jobs were kept and businesses continued. Everlight Chemical supports the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights issued by the Executive Yuan in 2020 according to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. We continue to promote and implement our Human Rights Policy, announced in 2019. We also strengthened our stakeholders’ communications and non-financial disclosures.
Reduced profit in 2020 led to a strained capacity in our charitable donations. Nevertheless, our supports to community education and industry development continued in innovative ways. For example, Hypochlorous Water Generators were donated to Shulin and Datan villages next to our factory to help the pandemic prevention efforts. We also continued to mobilize employees and their families to take part in voluntary coastal clean-ups and river patrols in Taoyuan City. With these initiatives we helped to protect the water bodies and marine environment around Greater Taoyuan. Everlight Chemical’s commitment to social
engagement remained unchanged.

Corporate Governance
Since 2020 we began making stock market important announcements in both Chinese and English to enhance information accessibility to foreign investors, and our level of internationalization. We have strengthened our risk management by issuing Risk Management Procedures, Cyber Security Procedures and Intellectual Property Protection Procedures which are reported to the Board of Directors and disclosed on the corporate website. The Board’s annual Strategy Development Conference was expanded to two days to deepen Board’s engagement in strategic development. A Chief Governance Officer was appointed on January 1, 2020, to provide Board Directors the information and supports needed to better carry out their duties. With all these, we further enhanced the effectiveness of the Board.
Despite the severe impacts of COVID-19, we hope that the mass roll-out of vaccines will soon bring the pandemic under control. Our sales began picking up slowly in Q3 last year. We are optimistic about 2021 and hope that this year’s performance will enable us to give back more to our stakeholders.

I hereby wish everyone and his/her families the best of health and peace of mind.