By virtue of the role HKEX plays in Hong Kong’s financial community, and the global trend for elevating ESG metrics in investment strategies, we aim to be best-in-class amongst Hong Kong companies in our CSR activities, both by leading by example and through the standards of disclosure and behaviours that we expect of our corporate issuers. Beyond our statutory roles and responsibilities, it is our ambition – even our obligation – to help promote prosperity in our society, not only from an economic perspective, but also through social and environmental progress. As such, we define our purpose as:

To Connect, Promote and Progress our Markets and the Communities they support for the prosperity of all.

To ensure our purpose continues to be core, our CSR Strategy aligns with HKEX’s overall business strategy, its objectives, ambitions and values. To help us to achieve our CSR ambitions, a set of focus areas are identified, across the three pillars of Our Markets, Our People and Our Operations by two themes defined below:

• Reinforcing strong corporate governance as a key driver of business success.
  Good corporate governance is the foundation for corporate citizenship and business sustainability. It ensures that the appropriate level of checks and balance are put in place, effective risk management is applied and responsible decision-making is central.
• Valuing diversity across our marketplace, workplace and community.
  Diversity and inclusion, in their widest interpretations, are essential for a successful and thriving society, as they foster an open and dynamic environment for business to innovate, for people to thrive and reach their full potential, and for the environment to evolve and sustain, so as to contribute to the long-term sustainability of the world as a whole.

Aligning Our Strategy with the Global Sustainability Agenda

Our CSR strategy was written to help us address global sustainability issues at a local level. It represents our desire to better align our CSR goals with the global sustainability agenda, in particular the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the World Federation of Exchanges Sustainability Principles, reflecting HKEX’s positioning as the region's global markets leader. Further details of our approach to address these global sustainability agenda can be found in HKEX's CSR Reports.