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Sappi South Africa and BBBEE
Posted by Daniel Makhura on 22 August 2017 8:20 AM SAST
Info about the above
As a company headquartered in South Africa, with significant assets and people, transformation is an important component of our reputation and licence to trade. We recognise that transformation is not just a moral imperative, but a pragmatic growth strategy that aims to realise the country’s full economic potential while helping to bring the black majority into the economic mainstream. Our focus, in terms of BBBEE, is to make a meaningful difference.
In FY2016 we achieved a Level 3 contributor status (based on the old codes as the new Forestry Sector Charter still has to be gazetted). Our target, which we report against annually, is to achieve Level 4 compliance in BBBEE in respect of the new Forestry Codes.
In 2010, Sappi implemented a broad-based empowerment share ownership scheme (24.3 million shares). Today, 45.66% of our Southern African business is owned by black people.
As at the end of September 2016, Sappi was involved in 51 land reform projects with an average farm size of 218ha. Many of these properties previously belonged to commercial farmers who had supply agreements with Sappi.
To ensure sustainable production from these properties, we have entered into supply agreements with the new beneficiaries and have also provided business assistance. This depends on the requirements of the project, but ranges from a pure supply agreement to a comprehensive Forestry Enterprise Development Agreement (FEDA). The latter is a supply agreement but also incorporates development objectives whereby Sappi provides technical and business training as well as administrative support.
Sappi supports the vision of a transformed, sustainable and growing forest products sector that contributes meaningfully to the South African economy. To this end, we are committed to the transformation mandate that is embedded in the Forest Sector Transformation Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) codes.
In respect of procurement we encourage suppliers when being measured by the BBBEE codes to:
• Be an empowered supplier
• Have at least a Level 4 status BBBEE certificate
• Have at least 50% black ownership, and
• Have at least 30% black women ownership.
