“There is enough evidence to demonstrate that business plays a key role in just moving society forward,” said Sanda Ojiambo as she addressed GCNS Members and Prospects during our in-person Open House 2023 that happened on February 7th.
Sanda Ojiambo reminded us that with only seven years left to achieve the 2030 Agenda, the world is not on track despite progress. However, she also empahsised that decisive actions from businesses are imperative in changing that narrative.
The keynote address was followed by an insightful sharing of key issues faced by business leaders and how the UN Global Compact is providing support by Sue Allchurch, Chief of Outreach and Engagement at UNGC.
Here are some highlights from the evening:
There’s firm belief and evidence that embracing the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact does lead to a more competitive business over time
The main challenge to business leaders is to balance the short-term priorities and pressures and the long-term sustainable business decisions
The two biggest challenges facing small businesses are the lack of financial resources and lack of knowledge which is why trading knowledge, skills and talent is important for them
The UN Global Compact and its local networks are here to help businesses navigate the complexities of business leadership and build a community so that people can share what they learned and provide business leaders platforms to conduct advocacy as well as to dialogue with the government on to how to move businesses forward
Collectively we have the opportunity to make a great impact on the region and globally toward the SDGs
On the sidelines of Sustainability Week Asia 2023 and in conjunction with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), we planned two events to engage with key MNC and SME Participants: The CEO Breakfast and The GCNS in-person Open House.
We were delighted to welcome our Guest of Honour, Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General and CEO of the UN Global Compact who joined us for both the events to amplify the UNGC messaging regarding the Global Stock Take, SDG Movements, and the 12th Annual UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study as well as UNGC’s strategy and commitment to the region, along with specific programmes and initiatives that will help local businesses.
This was followed by a fireside chat to discuss insights from the Annual UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study by ASG Sanda Ojiambo, Jurgen Coppens, Managing Director and Sustainability Services Lead of Accenture Southeast Asia, and Esther Chang, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Network Singapore.
Here are some highlights from the fireside chat:
The UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study serves as a call to action for both public and private sector leadership to enable and advance the corporate sustainability movement
The most senior leaders of the organization are responsible for driving the transformation needed by integrating sustainability into business strategy and operations in a manner that supports the long-term viability of the business
As businesses, politics, and geopolitics matters complicate decision-making, companies need to rely on principles more than business models and understanding globally what purpose means for them and their business
In order to thrive in the face of these unprecedented challenges, businesses need to build resilience by building their sustainability capabilities
We all need to collaborate, share best practices, and scale that across globally to meet ambition as no one sector or business alone can address the challenges and meet the 2030 agenda alone
Download the study here for detailed insights from CEOs around the world on sustainability.
On 31 January, UNGCNS held its first in-person event with panel discussions around the takeaways of COP28 and what this means for businesses in Singapore.
The event welcomed Guest-of-Honour Joseph Teo (Chief Negotiator for Climate Change, Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment) who provided an insightful keynote presentation on the COP28 discussions that took place around climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Two plenary sessions, on “The Transition away from fossil fuels and acceleration of renewable energy supply in Singapore” and “The case for greater climate disclosure and transparency to accelerate the journey to net zero emissions” were also held, with speakers having had experience at previous COPs.
Photo: Plenary Session 1, from left to right: moderator Law Li Zhe (NUS delegate to COP28), Dave Sivaprasad (Boston Consulting Group), Kavitha Gandhi (Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore), Christophe Inglin (Energetix Pte Ltd).Photo: Plenary Session 2, from left to right: moderator Saskia Kenall (Sandpiper), Fang Eu-Lin (PwC), Esther An (City Developments Limited), Abigail Ng (Monetary Authority of Singapore), Melissa Low (NUS Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions).
In this article, we summarize some of the relevant takeaways from the two plenary sessions:
1. On energy efficiency and renewable energy
One of the main outcomes of COP28 was the creation of the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, which saw 123 states, including Singapore, signing it. The Pledge called for the tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements on a global scale by 2030. In Singapore, where fossil fuels still form the major source of energy, promoting energy efficiency is one of the key ways for companies to reduce their emissions. On that note, retrofits to existing buildings and infrastructure would be one way for companies to improve on their energy efficiency. Examples of retrofits include changing to more efficient LED lighting, switching to glazed windows which provide better insulation, and upgrading to more efficient air-conditioning and compressor systems.
At the same time, it is important for companies to design with energy efficiency in mind, so that their facilities and operations do not have to use as much energy in the first place. Examples include buildings designed to allow more sunlight to stream in which lowers the need for lighting, more green cover, and better insulation which lowers the need for cooling.
Moving one step further, companies can also plan for integrating energy storage in their operations to enable them to maximise the utilisation of renewable energy for their operations. Due to Singapore’s climate which can reduce the generation of solar energy, energy storage helps companies cope with the intermittency of renewables, enabling them to tap on the energy stored when the sun is not shining, and in turn save on electricity costs by depending less on the grid.
2. Companies can facilitate and be part of a Just Transition
The global transition to a low-carbon economy will disrupt traditional emissions-intensive industries such as oil and gas, aviation, maritime, and semiconductors, especially if such industries don’t take steps to operate in a lower-carbon manner. Emerging green industries such as the renewable energy sector will also need talent as they expand to support the growing green economy’s needs.
With that, companies can seize the global low-carbon transition as an opportunity to pivot their business to support the low-carbon economy. In so doing, they should look at upskilling and reskilling their staff on the relevant sustainability knowledge and skillsets, which would enable them to contribute to the company’s sustainability pivot, as well as enable staff to acquire relevant skillsets in the low-carbon economy.
In turn, it will be helpful for companies to look at the type of skills they will need to grow their business sustainably, considering the increasing sustainability demands and requirements of their clients, investors, and in the jurisdictions which they operate. Beyond skillsets such as sustainability reporting, and carbon management, transferable skills which staff already apply in their current job scopes, such as project management, will be useful as well.
3. Harmonisation of climate-related disclosure standards
Climate change will bring about various risks that negatively affect a company’s financials and this has led to rising expectations by investors for companies to report the risks that climate change will have on their financial performance, as well as their climate transition plans.
Such expectations have led to the development of climate-related disclosure standards such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations and, more recently, the two standards by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) – the IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information (IFRS S1) and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures (IFRS S2).
It would hence be critical for companies to start thinking about and communicating their climate transition plans should they wish to continue being an investable company.
At the same time, with the various climate and sustainability-related disclosure standards out there besides those mentioned above, such as the standards by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), it can be confusing for companies to know which standards to align with.
On a positive note, recent efforts have been made to harmonise the ‘alphabet soup’ of sustainability-related disclosure standards. The ISSB’s IFRS Standards seek to become the global baseline of sustainability-related disclosure standards, incorporating both the TCFD Recommendations and SASB Standards. At the same time, the ISSB and GRI have been working together to achieve coordination and interoperability in both their standards.
In the evolving landscape of climate-related disclosures, companies can look to local regulations as a start. For example, in Singapore, the Sustainability Reporting Advisory Committee (SRAC), an industry-led committee set up by ACRA and SGX, has announced recommendations to require listed companies to start reporting ISSB-aligned climate-related disclosures from FY2025, with the same requirement applied to large non-listed companies from FY2027.
4. The domino effect of climate-related disclosure requirements
With the increasing focus on sustainability and climate related risks to inform businesses’ and investors’ decision-making, Singapore has taken proactive steps to gradually make sustainability reporting a requirement for companies in Singapore.
This includes the latest SRAC’s recommendations to make sustainability reporting a requirement for selected non-listed companies in the near future. With the bracket of companies expected to report their sustainability impacts widening, this will trickle down to smaller companies in the value chain who have to track their own sustainability impacts to serve the sustainability requirements of their bigger clients. This includes reporting of their own scope 1 and scope 2 emissions to feed into the scope 3 emissions reporting by their larger clients.
This reflects the need for smaller companies to build their capacity in sustainability so they will be prepared to meet the incoming demands by their stakeholders, even if they may not be directly affected by national regulatory requirements yet.
Besides climate-related disclosures, there has also been increasing calls for companies to look into their impacts on biodiversity, as reflected by the creation of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Recommendations. The TNFD aims for companies to report on the risks and opportunities associated with nature-related risks such as biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. While this may be relatively new to companies given that reporting on nature-related risks has not been a common practice, the TNFD Recommendations should be slightly more accessible to companies, as the TNFD builds on the TCFD model which is already relatively familiar to companies.
Overall, sustainability and climate-related disclosures are a means for companies to continually look at aligning long-term business growth with sustainable development. Companies can look to the requirements and demands from their various stakeholders (government, customers, investors etc.) as they craft and refine their sustainability policies and in turn, business strategies.
What do you believe is the number one thing that musicians are doing to ruin their chances at succeeding in the music industry? Is it: not practicing their instrument enough? Not putting together enough good music industry connections? Living in a city with no music scene? The answer to all of this is NO – none of these things. There can be countless reasons why a musician would fail to make it in the music industry, but the things above are merely symptoms of a deeper cause. In reality, the most common reason why musicians never succeed in this business is they have a FEAR based mindset.
The majority of musicians allow their fears to ruin their chances for succeeding in music. Some of these fears are understood consciously while others are only identifiable to someone who is looking for them. Unfortunately, whether you are aware of them or not, your fears can be very devastating to your music career. As one who mentors musicians on how to build a successful music career, I’ve observed this endless times.
The following are some of the frequent fears that devastate musicians’ chances for becoming successful and how to overcome them so that you can quickly move your music career forward:
Musician Fear #1: Fear Of Not Making Any Money
Anytime you have told your friends or family that you want to become a professional musician, what have they told you? Probably something like this:
*”You’ve got to get a safe job first in order to have a solid backup plan for your music career.”
Music is a form of art that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. It is normally expressed in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture). Music may also involve complex generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context.
Greek philosophers and medieval theorists defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies, and vertically as harmonies.
If painting can be viewed as a visual art form, music can be viewed as an auditory art form.
The broadest definition of music is organized sound. There are observable patterns to what is broadly labeled music, and while there are understandable cultural variations, the properties of music are the properties of sound as perceived and processed by humans and animals (birds and insects also make music).
The topic of sustainability is becoming ever-more pertinent and is increasingly being discussed at government, corporate, and even household levels. Naturally, it is nearly impossible to talk about sustainability without mentioning carbon emissions. It seems that there are almost daily reports published that include terms like “carbon markets,” “carbon credits,” and “carbon tax” – but what do all these terms mean? Our CPLC Partner, ACT Commodities, sheds light on these terms and explores the implications of these discussions on Southeast Asia as well as the carbon management journeys of organisations across the region.
Click on the download arrow on the top left to find out more.
