Across Asia, sustainability reporting rules are hardening. Regulators are phasing in climate disclosures, investors are demanding more forward-looking data, and global frameworks like the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) are providing a new baseline.
Yet many companies still behave as if reporting is something to survive, not something to use. That’s the uncomfortable message from Sustainability reporting: Track your progress, ACCA’s new global study of how prepared organisations really are to create and use decision-useful sustainability information. The report, based on a major global survey and series of industry workshops, looks at progress along an eight-stage cycle, from identifying sustainability risks and opportunities through to integrating them into strategy, systems, reporting and assurance.
The headline finding is stark: regulation remains the main reason companies act. Globally, 71 per cent of respondents said rules and regulatory drivers were their primary spur for collecting and using sustainability data. In Asia-Pacific and South Asia that figure rises to 73 per cent, with 68 per cent of respondents in China saying the same. Many firms are still responding because they have to, rather than because they see sustainability information as core to business resilience and competitiveness.
At the same time, progress is uneven. Just over half of respondents surveyed worldwide - around 53 per cent – say their organisations have started work on sustainability reporting in some form, yet up to 39 per cent remain “uncommitted”. They have not started, do not know when they will, or are unclear about their plans.
The demand side is moving faster than the supply side. Stakeholders are pushing for deeper insights into human capital and rights and innovation, alongside climate and nature, and they want data that connects clearly to financial performance and business models. Yet 41 per cent of companies globally say they struggle to understand reporting requirements or to identify what is most relevant to stakeholders. The trend is “alarming”, as one sustainability assurance specialist put it at a recent ACCA roundtable in Singapore. “You shouldn’t be reporting for the sake of reporting,” she warned.
The study also highlights significant leadership and capability gaps. Only 16 per cent of respondents worldwide say their organisations’ senior executives are leading sustainability reporting efforts, rising only slightly in Asia-Pacific and South Asia to 17 per cent and to 22 per cent in China. Processes and systems are often immature; many organisations still rely on spreadsheets and ad-hoc data collection rather than integrated platforms. And almost a third of SMEs and accounting firms admit they simply do not feel ready to meet new reporting demands.
These findings have direct implications for Asia’s transition. If reporting is driven mainly by compliance, climate and social risks will remain poorly understood, and capital will be misallocated. As the report stresses, sustainability information helps organisations know their business “end-to-end” so that boards can gauge resilience and opportunity over the long term.
It is in this context that ACCA has been taking the Track your progress findings into key Asian markets. In November, report author Sharon Machado, ACCA’s Head of Sustainable Business, has briefed regulators including the Asean Capital Markets Forum and Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), and led a practitioner roundtable in Singapore to exchange perspectives and reflect on the findings against front-line experience.
Participants repeatedly argued that ESG needs to be built into business performance, not parked in a separate report. A risk expert from a regional reinsurance company described how more frequent and severe natural disasters are reshaping its balance sheet and how institutional investors now expect explicit climate-aligned behaviour. At board level, this had already translated into limits on insurance coverage for oil and gas companies: “It’s driving the decision-making that we do in terms of the businesses that we write,” he said.
Where does this leave companies – and the profession – in Asia? ACCA’s report boils its advice down to four thematic recommendations. First, harness regulation, but use it to move beyond minimum compliance, prioritising globally relevant standards like ISSB and building on available regulatory ecosystems – taxonomies, filing platforms, guidance – that make good reporting easier. Second, optimise stakeholders’ roles, clarifying responsibilities across finance, risk, sustainability teams and external partners. Third, lead the change by embedding sustainability into governance, strategy and capital allocation, rather than treating it as an add-on. And finally, act now, starting with incremental improvements while investing in skills and systems that can scale.
For ACCA, that last point speaks directly to the accounting profession’s evolving role. It requires positioning finance professionals as connectors who can link non-financial data with financial performance and risk, supported by resources such as its Sustainability Reporting Hub. In a region where many SMEs and mid-tier firms “come to us not knowing where to start,” as one ESG Director at the roundtable put it, the need for right-sized, interoperable tools and practical guidance is acute.
The underlying message of Track your progress is that Asia’s sustainability reporting moment is here, but that companies are still grappling with the change. Regulations and investor scrutiny will continue to intensify; the question is whether organisations use this pressure to build genuine resilience, or simply to generate thicker reports.
If that conversation takes hold across boardrooms across Asia, sustainability reporting will transition from being something companies simply manage to something they rely on.
Publish your content with EB Publishing
It's about who you reach. Get your news, events, jobs and thought leadership seen by those who matter to you.
