The New Bursa Listing Requirement on Sustainability Reporting

While most Bursa listed companies have shown good progress in their annual sustainability disclosures, there have been tremendous developments and changes in the sustainability reporting landscape in the regional and international capital markets, pushing the reporting expectations further.  
This phenomenon was driven by the ever-increasing demands of various stakeholders and the drastic effects of climate change on the planet.  Hence, Bursa has reviewed and revised the existing sustainability reporting requirement to align with the international standards on sustainability disclosures.  

Under the new Bursa’s sustainability reporting framework, the four primary enhanced requirements are:

• Disclosing the minimum (eleven) prescribed sustainability matters and indicators.  These prescribed sustainability matters are Anti-Corruption, Community/ Society, Diversity, Energy Management, Health and safety, Labour Practices & Standards, Supply Chaim Management, Data Privacy and Security, Water, Waste Management and Emissions.
• Improving climate change management by adopting climate-related disclosures based on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”) recommendations in a dedicated section within the Sustainability Statement.
•  Disclosing the progress and achievement (at least on three (3) financial years rolling basis) of the sustainability performance targets for each of the prescribed sustainability matters.
•  Requiring the Sustainability Statement to be reviewed by the internal auditor or an independent assurance provider.

The above new requirements will be implemented on a phased approach, considering that listed companies need time to prepare and implement the relevant sustainability practices, policies, procedures and board oversight structure.  In this case, PLCs are given five (5) years to implement this new framework completely.  The following table summarises the new disclosure and the respective effective dates.