Bursa Malaysia Berhad (“Bursa Malaysia” or “the Exchange”) and UN Global Compact Network Malaysia & Brunei (“UNGCMYB”), the Malaysian and Bruneian chapter of the United Nations Global Compact, announced a collaboration to jointly explore the development of sustainability-focused capability and capacity building programmes that are specifically designed for the Malaysian marketplace.
Under the Memorandum of Collaboration (“MoC”), both parties will explore several initiatives including developing sustainability-related programmes or certifications that will support the upskilling of sustainability practitioners of public listed companies (“PLCs”) and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in their supply chains in a targeted manner. The efforts build on an earlier collaboration, which resulted in the release of the Corporate Sustainability Practitioner Competency Framework in 2021, which is a tool for practitioners to ascertain their level of the competencies on sustainability-related functions.
This current initiative comes at a time where companies are increasingly scrutinised by their stakeholders on how they incorporate sustainability strategies and considerations in their business operations. Malaysian businesses must be adept at responding to the multitude of sustainability challenges. The collaboration aims to identify needs and bridge the gap between current practices and what is now required of Malaysian companies, as well as the complex requirements these companies are expected to adhere to in continuing to carry out business with the international community.
Commenting on the collaboration, Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift, Chief Executive Officer of Bursa Malaysia said, “A sustainability capacity building programme for Malaysian companies is essential to ensure that companies are able to fill gaps in the sustainability talent pool, by pointing listed companies towards credible avenues to upskill the sustainability capabilities of their employees.”
“The expanded collaboration with the UNGCYMB reaffirms Bursa Malaysia’s commitment to working with stakeholders in developing a capable, and sustainability-focused marketplace. This signals our collective intent to support the Malaysian talent pool in navigating the increasingly complex global environment,” added Datuk Umar.
In addition, the collaboration will also provide a channel for SMEs in the supply chain of PLCs to improve their climate disclosures and onboard onto the Bursa Malaysia Centralised Sustainability Intelligence (“CSI”) Platform as part of the SME Decarbonisation Programme. As part of its commitment to supporting the decarbonisation of SMEs, UNGCMYB recently rolled out the SME ESG Hub2, a comprehensive ESG resource platform for Malaysian SMEs. The hub aims to support SMEs in planning, implementing, and communicating their ESG initiatives through practical resources including local and global case studies, and toolkits. Mr Faroze Nadar, Executive Director of UNGCMYB said, “Sustainability competency is critical to bridge the do-gap for sustainability and this expanded collaboration with Bursa Malaysia looks to develop an ecosystem of sustainability talents. We aim to do this by scaling and accelerating ESG competence by providing relevant programmes, workshops and tools for both corporates and SMEs.”
