Only 1 in 4 of region's listed firms finds nature-related issues material

But Singapore firms do better with climate-related disclosures: Study

- Sue-Ann Tan

Most top-listed companies in the Asia-Pacific region could identify topics like water, biodiversity and ecosystem protection in their sustainability or annual reports.

But only a quarter of them considered these issues material to their business, according to a new study conducted by global luxury group Kering and the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at NUS Business School.

The results of the study released on Jan 14 revealed that 72 per cent of some 700 listed companies from 11 industries in 14 markets discussed nature-related issues in their reports.

However, only 25 per cent of them found the issues material, in the sense that they prioritised nature as having significant impact on their operations, value creation and long-term sustainability, while considering their organisation's impact on nature.

In Singapore, only 14 per cent of the companies studied aligned with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).

Still, Singapore did much better with climate-related disclosures, with 98 per cent of the companies producing such reports that were aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

Singapore also had the highest percentage of companies that disclosed locations of value chain operations in priority areas, at around 10 per cent. None of the assessed companies in India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea provided such disclosures.