Sustainability and technology will be part of Boustead Plantations Berhad’s primary focus in the coming years, in an effort to further consolidate the company’s position as one of the key players in the industry.

BPB Chief Executive Officer Zainal Abidin Shariff said it is high time for the Group to transform its operations accordingly in tandem to the market demands in preparing itself for future challenges.

In his presentation to the Board of Directors at BPB’s Board Strategic Retreat, Zainal Abidin asserted in putting the Group on the path towards becoming a technology-based company that adhered to the principles of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG).

“Our aspiration is to transform BPB into a sustainable technology-based plantation company by ramping up mechanisation efforts while steadfastly upholding the ESG principles through BPB operations,” he said.

“It will be a long-haul journey. There are plenty of things that needs to be done to establish the necessary platforms and capacity for this journey. Some of the transformations are already in progress. We need to make the leap progressively,” he said at the two-day retreat held in September 21.

Zainal Abidin noted that certain organisations, both local and international, were becoming more conscious over the impact brought by plantation industry’s operations towards the environment, especially over the concern of global warming and climate change.

While noting that several aspects of plantation operation – such as replanting programme – has direct impact to the environment, new methods needed to be developed to ensure maximum mitigation efforts had been put in place.

“For activities that are crucial to our operations, we need to think of the best way to ensure the impact is minimised. We must always factor in the effects to the environment before we come to any decision,” he said.

By shifting BPB towards the sustainable and technology-driven path, Zainal Abidin said it would allow for the Group to realise the Reinventing Boustead Strategy of maximising value creation.