Asia-Pacific is leading the world in adopting global sustainability reporting standards, but must turn disclosure into resilience, according to a recent report.
More than 80% of Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( Asean ) economies by GDP have adopted or plan to adopt standards issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board ( ISSB ), finds the Asia-Pacific Builds a Sustainable Future report, published by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants ( ACCA ), which draws on interviews and roundtables with 44 finance and accountancy professionals and subject experts, alongside desktop research.
As well, the economies of the Asia-Pacific region, including Chinese mainland, that have mandatorily or voluntarily adopted ISSB standards, the report notes, represent close to US$60 trillion in GDP, approximately 47% of global GDP.
Yet, as Asia-Pacific builds a sustainable future, the report notes, disclosure is still widely treated as a compliance exercise, with finance functions not yet translating sustainability information into risks, opportunities and business value.
The gap will matter more as assurance arrives, with Malaysia aiming to introduce reasonable assurance on Scope 1 and 2 emissions for its largest listed issuers from 2028.
“The region has done the difficult institutional work, and it deserves credit for that,” says Sharath Martin, ACCA Asia-Pacific’s senior policy consultant. “What we heard consistently in our roundtables is that the narrative needs to change. This isn’t about disclosures per se, this is about making businesses more resilient.
“The same is true of decarbonization. It cuts emissions, but it also protects businesses and economies from fossil fuel price volatility, rising costs and supply shocks. What’s left is a capability and ownership gap, and it won’t close with time. It closes through deliberate reframing, and CFOs are ideally placed to lead that.”
Water and heat are identified in the report as potentially the defining issues of the century. If unaddressed, they, according to 2026 data from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, could shrink GDP by 8% by 2050 in high-income countries and by 10% to 15% in lower-income countries.
Floods alone, according to 2025 data from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific show, account for more than half of the 7.2 billion people affected by disasters in Asia-Pacific between 1970 and 2024.
European Union due diligence and reporting directives, the report reveals, will also bring market-access pressure on Asia-Pacific suppliers, making regional industry collaboration essential to ensure responsibility is shared and to avoid a “race to the bottom”.
Boards, the report urges, should treat decarbonization and nature as resilience risks embedded in budgets and capital plans. And policymakers should mobilize Asian capital to de-risk transition projects and strengthen the region’s voice in global standard-setting – only three of the ISSB board’s 12 members are from Asia-Pacific, and none from Asean.
“This is not a region waiting to be shown good practice, it’s building the architecture of sustainability reporting faster than anywhere else,” says Helen Brand, ACCA’s chief executive. “But adopting a standard is not the same as achieving a strong rate of decarbonization or addressing the other sustainability issues facing the region.
“Professional accountants are trained to ask where a number came from, who prepared it, and what interest shaped it. Those questions are now being asked of climate data, nature dependencies, labour conditions and algorithms. The accountancy profession can be a major force in building a more sustainable and resilient future for Asia-Pacific, and what happens here will shape what happens everywhere else.”
