The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) has approved a number of sustainability initiatives at its 39th ACMF Chairs’ meeting including the revised ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard to align with the revised Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance.
According to the chairman of Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), Awang Adek Hussin, the Malaysian regulatory framework is already broadly aligned with the OECD principles, which focus on sustainability-related governance.
The SC previously hosted the Asian launch of the OECD governance principles on the 11th October 2023.
“Malaysia is probably one of the first countries in the region to start its corporate governance journey, and we have made good progress. But it’s always an ongoing exercise trying to get our companies aligned and better prepared for sustainability,” Awang told ISFI.
In an adjacent sustainability effort, the ACMF meeting, hosted by the Indonesia Financial Services Authority or Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, saw the signing of the protocol for the ACMF–IFRS Foundation Dialogue on IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.
The engagements between the IFRS and the ACMF are expected to support the implementation of the International Sustainability Standards Board standards in the region. Issued in June this year, the voluntary standards marked the first two sustainability standards issued by the IFRS Foundation.
The meeting also endorsed the initial voluntary carbon market (VCM) report featuring the preliminary findings on the overall state of development of VCMs in ASEAN.
The report is the start for a more comprehensive study and structured report regarding the VCM in ASEAN and the importance of carbon offsetting disclosure.
With the launch of the Indonesian carbon exchange, the IDXCarbon, in late September this year, the cohesiveness of the broader ASEAN VCM ecosystem is increasingly pressing.
ISFI previously reported that the Malaysian and Indonesian VCMs are in preliminary talks to develop local standards consistent with global best practices. The standards are expected to address the bottleneck to scaling local carbon projects that global standard registries pose.