Benchmark Gensuite is proud to hear about Malaysia’s progress towards its net-zero goals as it establishes key frameworks and projects to support its transition to a low carbon economy. In late March 2023, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) published its Annual Report, announcing that the country will soon develop country-specific Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission factors.
That’s not all! The Malaysian economic landscape is brimming with initiatives that aim to support the country’s economy and businesses in adopting sustainable strategies and urgently reducing GHG emissions! The government is also parallelly working on articulating actionable climate programs and policies under the Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategy (LT-LEDS). Read ahead as we look deeper at these developments in Malaysia and discuss how digital solutions can support Malaysian businesses in successful sustainability project management through every step of their net-zero journey!
Malaysia’s Journey to Net-Zero
The Paris Agreement recognized that climate change cannot be tackled ad-hoc! Countries need to develop and adopt long-term strategies and targets to ensure climate action is consistent and provides real difference.
Affirming its commitment to the Paris Agreement, Malaysia revised its UNFCCC Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in July 2021, setting a target to cut carbon intensity against GDP by 45% by 2030 from that recorded in 2005. To achieve this target, the government is developing the Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) that aims to articulate actionable programmes and policies needed to deliver measurable GHG emission reductions aligned with the aims of the UNFCCC.
The Importance of Carbon Accounting in Malaysia’s Net-Zero Transition
At present, under Bursa Malaysia’s Sustainability Reporting framework, organizations are required to report their sustainability data, including their material sustainability factors as well as climate-change-related metrics aligned with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The country now wants to further increase its data’s transparency, credibility, consistency, and accuracy by enhancing GHG emission reporting within the framework.
Following in the footsteps of countries including the UK, Singapore, Philippines, and Australia, which have their own GHG reporting frameworks and systems, Malaysia is now working on establishing a national carbon accounting framework that will provide a consistent approach to assess emissions and set targets at national, sector, and entity levels to limit emissions – pricing carbon emissions in a way that can positively influence the decisions of businesses in Malaysia.
The move also includes the introduction of country-specific emission factors that the government believes will form a solid basis for its carbon accounting framework and the future scaling of mechanisms, including compliance carbon markets.
What Challenges are Organizations in Malaysia Facing in Achieving their Net-Zero Goals?
Business action is critical to drive Malaysia’s net-zero goals! For Malaysia to develop its national carbon accounting framework, BNM identified that businesses must quickly build sustainability knowledge and capabilities.
At present, the country’s power and energy sectors are responsible for more than 80% of national carbon emissions. Climate action is necessary across industries for Malaysia to smoothly transition to a low carbon economy.
In their endeavor to achieve their net-zero goals, ensure successful sustainability project management, report sustainability metrics, and manage their GHG emissions, businesses across various sectors need to tackle some critical challenges outlined below.
- Using spreadsheets or manual methods to compile enterprise-wide sustainability and GHG emissions data, convert it to appropriate units, and ensure accuracy can be very time-consuming.
- It can be challenging to maintain and apply emission factors consistently based on the type of fuel/resource and location.
- Successful sustainability project management – from establishing a queue of projects to meet net-zero goals, ensuring that the projects are executed on time, and evaluating the impact of these on your sustainability footprint can be complicated.
- Manual data management can also result in the inability to analyze data and accurately track sustainability performance thoroughly. This makes it difficult to drive informed decisions on setting sustainability targets (reduce usage & emissions).
The challenges outlined above can be seamlessly resolved by adopting digital tools to collect enterprise-wide sustainability data, automatically convert it to appropriate units, seamlessly report these under global ESG frameworks, including Bursa Malaysia’s Sustainability Framework, TCFD, GRI, SASB, and more, and successfully manage sustainability projects, drive them to closure, and measure their impact over time!
Benchmark Gensuite is Committed to Supporting Organizations in Malaysia Digitally Transform their Net-Zero Journeys & Sustainability Project Management!
At Benchmark Gensuite, we support Malaysia’s positive climate action initiatives and are looking forward to helping organizations across the country in their journeys to net zero! As businesses in Malaysia march ahead towards net zero and report under Bursa Malaysia’s Sustainability Framework, we recognize that a single, centralized, and flexible digital platform can help tackle some significant challenges involved.
For over two decades now, our team has been helping businesses across various sectors in Malaysia, including energy, property development, asset management, logistics, manufacturing, and more, in digitally transforming their unique sustainability journeys from supporting them in laying the foundation of their sustainability program, adopting strategies for sustainability program success, identifying material topics, and ensuring seamless sustainability project management – reducing the time, resources, and effort it takes to drive sustainability action and generate real impact!
By implementing Benchmark Gensuite’s digital solutions, organizations like yours can successfully run through the length of your net-zero marathon – seamlessly planning, implementing, and tracking GHG footprint reduction projects and sustainability activities across enterprise-wide sites! Additionally, digital solutions can help you quickly collect your sustainability metrics and communicate them to various stakeholders including the government, investors, consumers, and more to multiple stakeholders including the government, investors, consumers, and more, with ease!
Click the link below to learn more about Benchmark Gensuite’s Sustainability & ESG solutions. https://benchmarkdigitalesg.in/benchmark-solution-suites-all/sustainability-management/
