Summary:

On 16 July 2024, ACI hosted a webinar entitled “Green Horizons: Exploring ASEAN’s Green Trade and Corporate Sustainability Initiatives”. This webinar explored how ASEAN countries are navigating the shift towards a greener economy, emphasizing the pivotal role of green trade in driving regional development.

Professor Wolfgang Haerdle, Director of the Institute for Digital Assets, kicked the webinar with a presentation titled “On SGX’s Voyage to Corporate Sustainability: Exploring Emerging Topics in Multi-Industry Corpora”. This presentation focused on the integration of sustainability into corporate strategies and practices. It highlighted the importance of aligning business operations with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles to enhance long-term value creation. Professor Haerdle discussed the sustainability initiatives among the SGX-listed companies, the regulatory landscape requiring more transparent sustainability reporting, and examples of companies that have successfully integrated sustainability into their annual reports.

Dr Ammu George, Lecturer from Queen’s Business School, Queen’s University Belfast, presented her latest research titled “Trade as Part of the Climate Solution? Evaluating ASEAN’s Status Quo”. This presentation explored the role of trade in addressing the climate crisis, with a particular focus on the ASEAN region. Dr George discussed emissions from international trade, and how the trade in environmental goods has evolved in the ASEAN region. These presentations collectively emphasized the importance of integrating sustainability into both corporate practices and international trade policies to address the challenges posed by climate change.

Key Highlights:

1. The ASEAN region is a significant net exporter of emissions, largely due to the high levels of emissions embodied in its exports.

2. ASEAN is a net importer of environmental goods, and trade in these goods has grown significantly. However, ASEAN’s trade agreements contain relatively few environmental clauses compared to global standards.

3. The Singapore-Australia Green Economy Agreement (SAGEA) is a plausible model for integrating economic and environmental objectives.

By XIE, Taojun