Maybank and UMW Corporation signed on to pilot Bursa Malaysia’s Centralised Sustainability Platform from April to October 2023. The exchange announced the deployment on March 23, 2023, with the two companies forming its Early Adopter Programme.
The immediate task was practical: gather environmental, social and governance disclosures in one national repository rather than leave investors and companies to work through fragmented reports.
A common place for company data
Bursa developed and tested the platform with the London Stock Exchange Group. Listed companies would use it to strengthen ESG disclosures and account for carbon emissions across supply chains, including businesses that were not listed themselves.
The exchange said the repository would support consistent, transparent reporting while helping banks create green financing products. Those products were intended to encourage decarbonisation among corporate borrowers and their suppliers.
Chief executive Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift said the system would include a carbon-emissions calculator and modules for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. “We must ensure that the methodologies used are transparent, objective and consistent, and that the data must be of high quality,” he said.
Mandatory disclosure alone, in his assessment, would not produce effective sustainable investment. Reliable information was the foundation for an open economy connected to global markets.
What the early adopters were testing
Maybank and UMW agreed to test how sustainability data and standards could support financing programmes. Their pilot ran before Bursa broadened awareness and education sessions to other listed companies from July onwards.
That schedule was designed to help companies whose financial year ended in December 2023 prepare for mandatory disclosure requirements beginning in March 2024.
Maybank group president and chief executive Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli connected the work with customers’ transition plans. Access to supply-chain and carbon information, he said, would help shape decarbonisation strategies and the bank’s sustainable-finance advice.
The bank said its advice would address both sustainable and transition financing as customers set decarbonisation plans.
It also linked the initiative to its commitment to mobilise RM80bil in sustainable finance by 2025. Its M25+ strategy and mission to humanise financial services framed that commitment.
Beyond the listed company
Supply-chain information was central because emissions did not stop at a listed firm’s own offices or factories. Bursa’s platform was designed to capture that wider network and make the resulting disclosures more usable to investors.
Separately, Bursa and LSEG were examining a corporate ESG reporting tool intended to bring out more information about climate risks and opportunities. Their work came after the introduction of a benchmark for the exchange’s biggest issuers covering ESG performance and low-carbon activity.
For UMW president and chief executive Datuk Ahmad Fuaad Kenali, the commercial case included 11 promising areas of value, among them transport, power and hydrogen. He cited analysis estimating that demand for net-zero offerings could produce annual sales exceeding US$12 trillion (RM53.6 trillion) by 2030.
Sources
- Maybank Joins Bursa Malaysia’s Newly Launched Sustainability Platform – Fintech News Malaysia
- UMW, Maybank in Bursa’s sustainability platform | The Star
Sources
- Bursa Malaysia launches ESG disclosure solution | The Asset
- Bursa Malaysia Launches New ESG Reporting Platform
