Asia Pacific is leading the world in adopting global sustainability reporting standards, according to new research from ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), launched on the sidelines of the 33rd APEC Summit.
More than 80 per cent of Asean economies by GDP have adopted or plan to adopt standards issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Including the Chinese mainland, Asia Pacific economies that have mandatorily or voluntarily adopted ISSB Standards represent close to US$60 trillion in GDP, or around 47 per cent of global GDP.
Yet the report, Asia Pacific builds a sustainable future, finds that disclosure is still widely treated as a compliance exercise, with finance functions not yet translating sustainability information into risks, opportunities and business value. The gap will matter more as assurance arrives, with Malaysia aiming to introduce reasonable assurance on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions for its largest listed issuers from 2028.
“The region has done the difficult institutional work, and it deserves credit for that,” said Sharath Martin, Senior Policy Consultant, ACCA Asia Pacific.
“What we heard consistently in our roundtables is that the narrative needs to change. This isn’t about disclosures per se, this is about making businesses more resilient. The same is true of decarbonisation. It cuts emissions, but it also protects businesses and economies from fossil fuel price volatility, rising costs and supply shocks. What’s left is a capability and ownership gap, and it won’t close with time. It closes through deliberate reframing, and CFOs are ideally placed to lead that.”
The report identifies water and heat as potentially the defining issues of the century. If unaddressed, they could shrink GDP by 8 per cent by 2050 in high-income countries and by 10 to 15 per cent in lower-income countries, according to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. UN ESCAP data show that floods alone account for more than half of the 7.2 billion people affected by disasters in Asia Pacific between 1970 and 2024.
EU due diligence and reporting directives will also bring market-access pressure on Asia Pacific suppliers, making regional industry collaboration essential to ensure responsibility is shared and to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’.
Helen Brand OBE, Chief Executive, ACCA, said: “This is not a region waiting to be shown good practice; it’s building the architecture of sustainability reporting faster than anywhere else. But adopting a standard is not the same as achieving a strong rate of decarbonisation or addressing the other sustainability issues facing the region. Professional accountants are trained to ask where a number came from, who prepared it, and what interest shaped it. Those questions are now being asked of climate data, nature dependencies, labour conditions, and algorithms. The accountancy profession can be a major force in building a more sustainable and resilient future for Asia Pacific, and what happens here will shape what happens everywhere else.”
The report asks boards to treat decarbonisation and nature as resilience risks embedded in budgets and capital plans. It asks policymakers to mobilise Asian capital to de-risk transition projects and to strengthen the region’s voice in global standard-setting. Only three of the ISSB Board’s 12 members are from Asia Pacific, and none are from Asean.
Asia Pacific builds a sustainable future draws on interviews and roundtables with more than 40 finance and accountancy professionals and subject experts, alongside desktop research. Read a summary and download the full report.
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