Expolanka Holdings wins Grand Award for Green/Environmentally Sound Annual Report at ARC Awards

Expolanka Holdings PLC walked away with the Best of Category – Grand Award for the year 2011 in Green/Environmentally Sound Annual Reports winning the Gold award from among 2200 entries from 32 countries at the glittering Academy Awards of Annual Reports the 26th ARC Awards International in New York City on Thursday, 20 September.

Commenting on the award, Head of Marketing, Corporate Communications and CSR Paddy Weerasekera stated, “We are elated by winning this prestigious international award. This is a testimony to our efforts and commitment in building a greener environment. The production of this annual report, conceptualised by ‘Smart Media – The Annual Report Company’, was done largely on recycled paper and with recycled material through one of our subsidiary companies, Neptune Recyclers.  We made the annual report available on CDs to the larger public to ensure minimum use of paper. In addition we went one step further and created a dedicated web portal for the report so that people could read it online with convenience, again reducing the use of paper and hence helping the environment.”

The Expolanka Holdings Annual Report themed, ‘Our Spirit of Dare-to-Do Spells Success’, went through a stringent judging process where each entry was evaluated three separate times during the preliminary rounds. The three sets of scores were then averaged into a single score for the individual entry. Only one Gold, Silver, Bronze and Honours Award were awarded to each classification. Expolanka Holdings having won Gold was then named the Best of Category – Grand Award winner from among all Gold Award winners.

For over a quarter of a century, The MerComm Annual Report Competition — the ARC Awards — has been the most anticipated Annual Report event of the year. The awards are globally recognised, providing a platform for the highest standards in the annual report industry. The competition is open to all organisations and individuals involved in the process of producing annual reports for publicly held or privately owned companies, government agencies, associations, and not-for-profit organisations.

The ARC Awards Competition is unique in that each annual report is judged against itself, based on its success in communicating its company’s story. Judging is based not on corporate profitability or expensive production but on the values of creativity, clarity, effectiveness and excellence.

Expolanka Holdings PLC – the Holding Company of the Expolanka Group, commenced operations in 1978. The company is listed in the Main Board of the Colombo Stock Exchange as a diversified conglomerate. With diversified interests in freight and logistics, international trading and manufacturing, travel and leisure and investments and services, the group has a global presence in over 16 countries and 44 cities.