BUSINESSES today have no choice but to respond to the need for greater sustainability in the face of a potential climate disaster, says Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) president and group chief executive officer Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz.
Tengku Muhammad Taufik, who is also chairperson of the steering committee of CEO Action Network (CAN), explains that this unprecedented period presents many untapped opportunities to develop and offer new solutions to the market that will contribute positively to society and the environment.
“Progress in this area will require collective and transformative action from all stakeholders,” he says in a statement from CAN, the first sustainability-focused informal coalition of leading CEOs and senior decision makers in the country.
CAN had recently announced its collective environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments to be achieved by 2023 ahead of the global United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) meeting in Glasgow in November.
The commitments, which were made official during CAN’s first anniversary event, will be critical to enabling the country to achieve a net-zero future and will also be pivotal to accomplishing the aspirations of Malaysia’s Shared Prosperity Vision by 2030.
Tengku Muhammad Taufik: Progress in this area will require collective and transformative action from all stakeholders.
With close to 50 CEOs and senior decision makers representing over 20 sectors in Malaysia, CAN members have made 14 commitments to be achieved by the member organisations under three categories, namely environment, people and governance, with three progressive levels of commitment for each category.
Almost all CAN members have committed to at least one set of goals, depending on the size of the organisation and their current level of progress on sustainability adoption and integration, while others such as newer members are required to sign on within the next 12 months.
“CAN offers a unique platform for CEOs to deliberate on the material issues shaping the future survival and growth of their businesses while providing motivation to take definitive action to combat systemic issues.
“The immediate outcomes of the collective commitments should lead the way in orchestrated action towards positive change,” says Tengku Muhammad Taufik.
CIMB Group Holdings Bhd head of group sustainability Luanne Sieh, who is also chair of the working group of CAN, shares: “The Collective Commitments have been designed to challenge CAN members at various levels of sustainability maturity to commit to the next step of sustainability progress.
“CAN’s Working Group is actively collaborating with members and partners to curate content and plan activities that will help member organisations build their knowledge, capacity and skills to progressively move to advanced levels of sustainability adoption and integration.
“Regular, open and transparent exchanges and knowledge sharing between all our members and stakeholders are crucial to raise awareness and generate momentum for climate action.”
To support these commitments from businesses, CAN has partnered with Climate Governance Malaysia to organise a series of 15 roundtable discussion on Net-Zero Pathway Ambition with more than 2,000 participants, covering critical sectors such as energy, agriculture and plantations, property and construction, and telecommunications.
Contributing hundreds of hours, CAN CEOs curated and led these roundtables with participation from the public sector, regulators, civil society, industry associations and businesses.
“Public-private collaboration can play a critical role in unlocking new opportunities and solving existing challenges. To accelerate change, particularly in the area of sustainable development, business leaders across the public and private sectors must work together.
“In just its first year, the CEO Action Network, through its cohort of diverse senior executives in the country has responded emphatically and decisively to help address the clear and present dangers of the climate emergency,” says Datin Seri Sunita Rajakumar, lead of the policy advocacy work stream of CAN and chairperson of Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd.
Meanwhile, Star Media Group Bhd (SMG) group CEO Alex Yeow says: “Sustainability is more than a buzzword. For us as a news and media organisation, sustainability encompasses our role and responsibility in shaping the nation through our content and platforms.
Yeow: We have seen positive shifts in society and while progress is well underway, there is much more that needs and can be done.
“Being close to the ground, we are in the unique position where we are able to identify gaps across various aspects. It is not enough to merely know what is going on. It is what we do with this knowledge that is most important.”
He explains: “Leveraging on our strength of reach and ability to influence, we choose to actively create awareness, educate and pave the way for a more socially conscious community, on top of our own sustainability efforts across our operations. Whether it’s through our content, events or even the organisations we engage with, we strive to be a compass for better.”
Yeow adds: “We have seen positive shifts in society and while progress is well underway, there is much more that needs and can be done. It’s going to take all of us to make a change, and we at Star Media Group are humbled to be a part of the CAN coalition committed to building a stronger foundation today for a better tomorrow.”
CAN members are also creating purposeful and practical peer-sharing and learning modules on various aspects of sustainability including climate change, energy management, labour relations and waste and water.
A series of supplier and small and medium enterprise (SME) training sessions on these sustainability topics are also being planned for late 2021.
“Our continuing aspiration is to allow members to not just learn from each other but to also uplift sustainability capacity in our supply chains and business ecosystems by building ESG knowledge and skills in the context of business, resilience and growth.
“To date, more than 500 practitioners from CAN member organisations have attended the modules. We plan to extend these to SMEs in our members’ supply chains over the next one year, as it is critical for businesses to look beyond their own operations and manage their indirect impacts on the environment and society,” shares Andrew Chan, lead of the capacity building workstream of CAN and PwC’s South-East Asia climate change leader.