Good Tidings for Chinese New Year | Everbright Environment's Sustainability Performance Has Again Received International Recognition

4 February 2022, Hong Kong － China Everbright Environment Group Limited ("Everbright Environment" or the "Company") (SEHK: 257) is pleased to announce that the Company has been included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2022 for the fifth time. Inclusion in the yearbook, which was released earlier this month, not only indicates that the Company has been recognised by international authorities once again, but also reflects Everbright Environment's firm belief and continuous effort in the concept and practice of sustainable development.

Everbright Environment, as the only enterprise from Mainland China and Hong Kong, was selected in the Commercial Services & Supplies category. According to the data, only ten enterprises out of the 98 participating enterprises around the world were included in the yearbook under this category, while five and nine companies from Mainland China and Hong Kong respectively were shortlisted in the yearbook this year.

S&P Global began to lead the release of the sustainability yearbook since 2021. The yearbook aims to identify and commend companies around the world that achieved outstanding results in sustainable development in the last year, paying close attention to companies' sustainability in the environment, social, governance and economic dimensions. It is regarded as the world's most scalable, comprehensive and influential sustainability development assessment publication. According to the yearbook for 2022, over 7,500 enterprises worldwide participated in the assessment. In order to be listed in the yearbook, companies must be within the top 15% of their industry and must be within 30% of their industry's top-performing companies. Only 716 companies made it into the Sustainability Yearbook 2022.

Since the entry into the environmental protection industry in 2003, Everbright Environment has integrated sustainability-linked concepts into its corporate core value of "Creating Better Investment Value and Undertaking More Social Responsibility", with a view to supporting relevant national strategies, fulfilling development needs, benefiting the environment and community, and creating high-quality environmental protection projects and services. The Company was the first to promote and adopt the Directive 2000/76/EU (EU 2000 Standard) in Mainland China. It also took the lead in disclosing daily average level of online monitored gas emission of all waste-to-energy projects, as well as opening up its projects for public visits. By continuing to open up more projects to the public and improve quality of relevant work, the Company is willing to accept supervision from all social circles.

Focusing on environmental projects one at a time, Everbright Environment has incorporated the concept of joint sustainable development of economic, environmental and social benefits with reference to local conditions and adapted accordingly. It developed Jiangsu Changzhou Waste-to-energy Project, which is located the closest to residential communities across China, and transformed the project into China's first fenceless, full-open and community-friendly "Living Room of the City" and "Community-Friendly Plant". The transformation has been effective in creating shared interests among the government authorities, businesses and residents. The Company's urban-rural integration projects have not only effectively solved the serious environmental problem of the open burning of rural agricultural byproducts, but also increased local employment opportunities and local farmers' income sources through establishing the systems of storage, collection and transportation of agricultural and forestry byproducts, actively helping alleviate poverty in local communities. The Company's Jiangsu Zhenjiang Sponge City Construction Public-Private Partnership ("PPP") Project effectively solves local flooding and rain pollution problems through green infrastructure, in which the community infrastructure involved greatly enhanced the convenience and accessibility for local residents' living and makes Zhenjiang a more livable city. We are proud of the fact that since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, our environmental protection projects have been operating efficiently in the face of the serious pandemic situations and the ongoing pandemic prevention and control requirements. These projects have been actively cooperating with the local authorities to properly handle a large amount of household waste, municipal waste water, medical waste and medical waste water, effectively preventing the secondary contamination of the local communities through the medium of waste and waste water.

In addition, with China's undertaking to the international community to achieve "Carbon Emission Peak" and "Carbon Neutrality" ("Dual Carbons"), Everbright Environment closely follows the national strategic directions. It has established the "Three Carbons" strategic targets to become a carbon-negative company, develop zero-carbon plants and pursue a low-carbon lifestyle, in a bid to actively participates in China's green and low carbon development process. The Company enhances its development by elevating its development paradigm from the three areas of environment, energy and resources to four areas, namely environment, energy, resources and climate, which helps improve the Company's strategic vision. Meanwhile, the Company continues to boost investment in technological innovation, leveraging on its "Four-in-One" technology research and development pattern, conducting researches to tackle technical difficulties relating to reduction of pollution and carbon emission, which has helped build out its hard power in technology, with the technology-driven development strategy having already started to yield results. In addition, through the self-development and improvement of the carbon emission calculation model, which is combined with Chinese conditions, the Company has confirmed that it can contribute carbon emission reduction by about four million tonnes per annum and it is qualified for the carbon-negative enterprise attribute. The Company also established the Carbon-Neutral Technology Research and Development Center to develop a "Two Carbons" innovation platform, undertook the pilot programme launched by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the PRC in relation to the monitoring of greenhouse gas emission and launched the "in-plant solar energy" pilot programme at its projects.

With years of unremitting exploration, cultivation and pursuit, Everbright Environment has won many sustainable development awards: 11 consecutive years in the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Benchmark Index, six consecutive years in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Series, five consecutive years in the FTSE Social Responsibility Index, three consecutive years of receiving the "Best Environmental Responsibility" award, the "Outstanding Enterprise Award for Climate Change", and being listed among the "Top 100 New Technologies in China 2021".

Benefiting from the changing times, Everbright Environment has grown and made great achievements over the past 18 years. Fully committed to its corporate mission of being "Devoted to Ecology and Environment for a Beautiful China", the Company is doing its utmost to make its business stronger and improve its responsible and effective operations. With the global determination to achieve a "reduction of pollution and carbon emission" to meet the challenges of climate change and China's strategic significance of the "Two Carbons", Everbright Environment will focus on national strategic deployment and goals such as "Two Carbons" and development of ecological civilisation, deeply implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, deeply promote the new pattern of "Four-in-One" development paradigm, and act as a staunch supporter and active participant of sustainable development in the process of promoting strategic transformation and high-quality development, contributing to the green, low-carbon and sustainable development of China and the world.