February 19, 2014

To our Stakeholders,

I am content to explicitly confirm Al Ajmi Engineering Consultants commitment towards the UN’s Global Compact initiative and its continued intent to embrace and act on the UN’s Global Compact “10 Principles” in the areas of Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption.

In this first annual Communication on Progress, we elaborate on the initiatives taken by our company to further integrate the Global Compact’s principles into our policies, philosophy and daily operations.

We bind ourselves to continually share this information with all our stakeholders through various means of communication.

Yours Sincerely,

Wassim Adlouni
CEO

At Al Ajmi, we strictly follow and enforce human rights policies as articulated in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We consider this declaration as a common standard of achievement to all employees at AEC regardless of their position.

In addition to following the UN’s declarations with regard to human rights we also developed our own policy which deals with the elimination of any forms of discrimination when dealing with employees or hiring new ones, and the policy states that: “AEC completely adheres to the values and rights of equality and diversity and does not indulge in unlawful acts of discrimination against anyone on the basis of their race, sex, pregnancy and maternity, marriage or civil partnership status, disability, religion or belief, social status or age. All applicants are welcomed and evaluated solely on merit, capabilities and potential” .We have been working hard to ensure that all our business associates follow, respect and implement our human rights policies. To do so we request all the companies and associations that we deal with to submit prequalification documents describing their activities, policies and history.

The pre-qualifications documents are reviewed and compared with AEC standards. The companies that are found to comply with our standards are added to our vendor lists otherwise they are omitted.

AEC is aware of the importance of implementing all the labor rights principles. Abiding by these laws and principles helps us define the responsibilities of employees as well as employers. Furthermore, we abide by fair employment strategies when hiring, training or retaining employees. Equal opportunities are given to employees regardless of their race, gender or disabilities. All these issues have been addressed in our employment policy which states: “AEC completely adheres to the values and rights of equality and diversity and does not indulge in unlawful acts of discrimination against anyone on the basis of their race, sex, pregnancy and maternity, marriage or civil partnership status, disability, religion or belief, social status or age. All applicants are welcomed and evaluated solely on merit, capabilities and potential”

We hold regular training sessions for managers of our departments to raise awareness about labor related issues and how to deal with incidents on site or in our offices. We work hard to ensure that the companies and associations we deal with also meet the qualifications and policies that we set for ourselves. Any company that wishes to deal with AEC has to go through a pre-qualification process where in this case the company’s policies, projects and history are compared to AEC’s policies and standards. We also take other measures to make sure that our standards are followed in construction sites by checking all the legal labor documents to ensure that we do not have any cases of forced or child labor

We haven’t encountered any labor related violations so far; however violations can be documented by filling a form that is available on site. These forms are then reviewed by the management and actions are taken accordingly. We find that the application of these principles have helped us focus on our productivity and overall performance.

AEC has been committed to an environmentally sustainable approach for many years as evident in its operations and projects. This commitment is enforced by explicitly endorsing and sponsoring the UN’s Global Compact ‘10 Principles’ initiative through providing eco-friendly designs, material specifications, environmentally friendly construction methods, energy saving tools and equipment and through methods of running the day-to-day operations such as promoting paperless communication by using software solutions (ex. Proliance Portfolio Management Solutions), electronic correspondences and e-signatures.
Our commitment is to:
• Continuously improve our environmental performance and integrate environmental management best practice into our practice operations;
• Reduce our consumption of resources and improve the efficient use of those resources;
• Measure, review and take action to reduce the carbon footprint of our practice activities to meet our objectives and targets;
• Manage waste generated from our practice operations according to the principles of reduction, re-use and recycling;
• Manage our practice operations to prevent pollution;
• Give due consideration to environmental issues and energy performance in the planning and design of buildings, urban design and landscape design;
• Ensure environmental, including climate change, criteria are taken into account in the procurement of goods and services;
• Comply as a minimum with all relevant environmental legislation as well as other environmental requirements to which the practice subscribes;

To meet our commitments we will:
• Provide management oversight and review environmental policies and performance, and allocate resources for effective direction and implementation;
• Set and monitor key objectives and targets for managing our environmental performance at least annually;
• Communicate internally and externally our environmental policy on a regular basis, and encourage feedback;
• Communicate the importance of environmental issues to staff;
• Work together with our staff, professional colleagues, and suppliers to promote improved environmental performance;
• Promote consideration of sustainability and environmental issues in the services we provide to our clients;
• Review our environmental policy regularly.

Finally, AEC regularly holds seminars to raise awareness to issues related to sustainability. Managers from different departments are required to attend these meeting to keep up with the latest updates on sustainability and eco-friendly systems. Furthermore, the attendees are expected to pass the knowledge they received in these seminars to members of their departments, in addition to implementing changes to enhance the existing environmental friendly policy. Moreover, to reduce the consumption of paper we plan to launch a section in our website to receive prequalification documents as a soft copy instead of the hardcopies we deal with at the moment. This will reduce the use of paper significantly and enhance our environmental friendly policy

As a consultant AEC recommends the use of Eco- friendly methods of construction and sustainable alternatives to our clients. We have not encountered any incidents of environmental pollution or endangerment ; however if any such cases occur , our staff on site and in our offices are encouraged to report and document these cases in order for the management to take effective measures to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again.

AEC adopts a zero-tolerance policy for corruption. All AEC employees are advised to report any attempts of bribery, perjury or any form of corruption. Cases of corruption are taken very seriously, employees who are found involved are susceptible to serious actions that might reach to expulsion. This policy is also followed with the companies and organizations that we deal with. Companies that are known for previous cases of corruption are automatically blacklisted.

A corroption policy has not yet been issued as one of the firm’s official policies. Therefore, AEC’s future plan concerning corruption is to issue an official policy addressing the different forms of corruption that our employees might come across in addition to defining the procedures that should be taken in case an incident of corruption was encountered.

So far we haven't had any corruption cases that required dealing with, However if we face any cases in the upcoming future we intend to take serious measures to ensure that such cases are not repeated.AEC is constantly evaluated by the ISO certification board. As part of the certification process , audits and other document monitoring procedues are performed.