Double Win for WNC at the 2024 Taiwan Sustainability Action Awards

Hsinchu, August 8, 2024 — The Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy held the 2024 Asia-Pacific Sustainability Action Awards Ceremony at the Taipei World Trade Center today. There were a total of 507 submissions from 230 participants at this year’s awards, and WNC was honored with a Gold Award in the SDG 4 Quality Education category for its Exploring the World Beyond the Mountains project and a Bronze Award in the SDG 15 Life on Land category for its Actions of Hope to Protect the Land project.

Exploring the World Beyond the Mountains
To pursue the goals of reducing unequal distribution of education resources and providing high-quality education for elementary schoolchildren in remote areas of Taiwan, WNC is working with non-profit organizations and local universities to implement its Exploring the World Beyond the Mountains project. Key elements of the project include courses on dance, judo, choir, archery and traditional Atayal culture, the Differentiated English Teaching Program (a collaboration with the Boyo Foundation to provide free after-school English classes), and WNC Classroom, a program where WNC employees and Tsing Hua University students design and teach a series of basic communications and science courses. Through this project, we aim to broaden the horizons of these schoolchildren and help them discover their potential to establish a solid foundation for their future success. As a company our aim is to pursue the targets and indicators listed in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): SDG 1: No Poverty, SDG 4: Quality Education and SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals.

Actions of Hope to Protect the Land
In response to international trends WNC initiated an Actions of Hope to Protect the Land project in 2021, working with stakeholders to identify environmental and social issues that require urgent action and coming up with solutions to help solve these issues. As part of the project, WNC formulated and adopted a Biodiversity and No Gross Deforestation Commitment and joined the Taiwan Nature Positive Initiative. WNC also implemented a series of internal and external action plans to further its efforts in protecting biodiversity. Internally, WNC obtained Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody certification and started using FSC certified packaging materials. Externally, WNC worked with the Chi Po-lin Foundation to organize a photography camp where children could learn about the local culture and ecology and why it should be preserved and protected. Finally, WNC partnered with the Water Resources Agency, the National Taiwan University Experimental Forest Management Office, and the Xiluo Township Office to plant 1.4 hectares of native Taiwan trees on the left banks of the Zhuoshui River near the Xiluo Bridge. The drought resistant, windproofing and carbon fixation properties of these trees will ameliorate dust and haze in the local area and contribute to habitat renewal. The aforementioned actions are our way of responding to and working toward the targets in SDG 13: Climate Action, SDG 15: Life on Land, and SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals.

Winning these awards at the Taiwan Sustainability Action Awards is a testament to the hard work and effort that participants put in to progress toward SDG targets. WNC will continue to focus on enhancing communication and collaboration with stakeholders to solve problems, create value and achieve its vision for sustainable development. In the future, we aim to use more diversified sustainability action plans to further contribute to the creation of a sustainable world.