Satinder Chawla Managing Director Span Floors “Being in the wood flooring and facades sector, we also take each opportunity to educate our customers, architects, designers, builders, and contractors and give them tools to objectively evaluate the quality of various options available in the market. ” — Satinder Chawla The world, as we can see, is faced with particular challenges. We have a situation regarding global warming and changing weather patterns, we have another case where materially we have grown exponentially. Still, morally there has been a not-so-good change in terms of deteriorating values. While the picture may look bleak if we put our attention solely on the problems, the moment we turn to solutions, we find many who realise that these situations need handling and are putting their shoulders to the wheel. At Span floors, it is our thought that the only sustainable way to create wealth is by adding value to people's lives. Accordingly, our ESG plan is simple: Environmental impact We break this up into two parts - First is the impact on the indoor building environment and the other is the impact of the building on the outside world. We look at the impact wood floors have on indoor air quality. This basically looks at the type of chemicals used to manufacture and finish the floors and their emissions. As to the outdoor impact, it comes from how and where the wood has been sourced. Being in the wood flooring and facades sector, we also take each opportunity to educate our customers, architects, designers, builders, and contractors on these issues and give them tools to objectively evaluate the quality of various options available in the market. We conduct regular training sessions, webinars, and YouTube videos for the industry participants where we talk in-depth about these in a simple manner so that they can connect it with their day-to-day lives and can apply the data learnt. Our internal staff training is accordingly designed and the team feels happy in the knowledge that whatever work they are doing within the organisation, in some manner, contributes to solving the problem rather than enhancing it and at the same time helps them financially. Social Regular training is conducted for our staff where we work with each individual to create an individual training plan. We use something called “The Technology of Study” which teaches the correct way to study anything so that the data can be fully grasped and applied to produce the desired results. This itself produces a lot of beneficial change in an individual as they learn skills and master it so that the desired value can be provided to the organisation and society. Governance Being an SME, we take pride in the fact that our mutual actions as an organisation contribute to nation-building. This includes customer satisfaction as a top priority and the first policy. Our team as a whole understands that their incomes are ultimately derived from the consumer who chooses to trust Span Floors as a brand and gives us an opportunity to help them in their goal of making a beautiful home. They also understand that our customers earn their income through hard work and it is our responsibility to give them full value by giving them wood floors, facades and decks that not only look good and are durable but also contribute to good health in terms of product emissions as well as a positive impact on the general environment. About the author Satinder Chawla, Managing Director, Span Floors, considers his acknowledgements from social work as his achievements in life. Along with providing the customers best from the wood industry, he has been generating awareness on sustainable forestry as well as the impact of certain chemicals on indoor air quality.