Masan Group Corporation was honored with the Community Initiative Award at the 2021 Asia Corporate Excellence and Sustainability (ACES) Awards on November 19.

The awards honor companies and individuals in Asia across a variety of leadership and corporate social responsibility categories, with the Community Initiative Award given to organizations that make great contributions to creating development opportunities for communities through their initiatives and approaches.

Since its inauguration in 2014, the ACES Awards has grown to become one of the most sought-after accolades in Asia, a fact substantiated by the exclusive list of winners, which includes some of Asia’s most renowned business leaders, corporations, and brands.

In its eighth edition, the ACES saw 154 finalists selected from 420 nominations.

“Sustainability goals should never be looked at as a nuisance, but rather a way to align the financial and community give-back goals,” said Dr. Jayanthi Desan, Lead Jury, ACES Awards.

“Masan Group has done this admirably in its well-thought-out initiatives.”

Known not only as the leading consumer goods and retail corporation in Vietnam, Masan is also an enterprise that considers sustainable development as a strategy to make a meaningful contribution to the development of communities.

Masan focuses on achieving sustainable development norms across its production and business activities, including innovation in products and processing, human resource sustainability, environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and corporate governance.

Masan's factories and member companies across the country all comply with national and local laws and regulations on the environment, implementing measures to assess, monitoring and protecting the environment, inspecting factory machinery and equipment and fire safety, and closely coordinating with state agencies for periodically checking and reporting.

For instance, Masan Consumer Holdings, a subsidiary of Masan, has built modern wastewater treatment plants designed by a Dutch partner at its factories in Binh Duong, Hai Duong, and Nghe An Provinces.

All wastewater treatment quality test results meet class A standards, the highest in Vietnam, and ISO 14001 criteria on environmental management.

In Binh Duong, Masan Consumer is also one of the pioneers in making the wastewater treatment process transparent through the installation of an automatic wastewater monitoring system that reports directly and continuously to the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Masan's sustainability initiatives focus on bringing value to society and contributing to the local community.

It currently has the largest retail chain in Vietnam with nearly 2,500 VinMart/VinMart+, to be renamed WinMart/WinMart+, stores and supermarkets as well as a number of factories producing essential items such as food, beverages, and meat and meat products all over the country.

With consumer products and retail services, the group constantly researches and begins trends that bring the utmost convenience to customers.

In 2021, when the fourth COVID-19 outbreak caused great socio-economic difficulty, it contributed over VND270 billion (US$11.9 million) to epidemic prevention and control efforts, including through supporting the government's COVID-19 Vaccine Fund and donating medical equipment to hospitals and essential products and cash to frontline forces.

“As the leading consumer goods and retail corporation that has a profound effect on tens of millions of consumers, Masan believes in 'doing well by doing good,’ said Masan Group’s representative.

“Community initiatives play a crucial role in realizing our mission of uplifting the material and spiritual lives of 100 million Vietnamese consumers each and every day.”