Pakistan is reaching a turning point on sustainable business, according to a new joint report from ACCA and the Pakistan Business Council. Almost three-quarters of businesses surveyed, 71 per cent, already disclose some form of ESG information, and the country’s securities regulator began phasing in the ISSB’s IFRS S1 and S2 disclosure standards for listed companies from July 2025, aligning Pakistan with a wider regional shift already underway in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and beyond.
The report frames this as more than a compliance exercise. Pakistan is among the countries most exposed to climate change, with South Asia facing the highest climate-related GDP risk of any region by 2050 in one widely cited estimate. But it also points to real opportunity: the global green energy market alone is projected to exceed US$2 trillion by 2035, and Pakistan has already tested the waters with green bonds, including a USD 500m Eurobond in 2021 that was six times oversubscribed and a first PKR-denominated green bond in 2025. Investment interest is building too, with 32 per cent of businesses surveyed now disclosing ESG information directly to their institutional investors or financiers.
The report’s recommendations are organised around three audiences. Investors are urged to prioritise capital toward sectors with direct sustainability impact, embed climate risk into valuation models, and hold investee companies accountable for reporting against IFRS S1 and S2. Businesses are asked to build the internal capacity and systems needed for mandatory reporting and to strengthen cross-department collaboration on ESG data. Regulators and policymakers are called on to support capacity building, introduce independent third-party assurance of sustainability reports to guard against greenwashing, and expand access to green finance instruments such as green bonds.
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