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KUALA LUMPUR, 14 JULY: More clients are adopting diverse areas of finance to satisfy their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, according to a Citi analysis released today.
According to Citi, 54 percent of respondents have ESG policies and practices integrated into their organizations’ corporate strategies, while over 90 percent of the remaining respondents plan to implement ESG policies and practices within the next five years.
Meanwhile, with Covid-19 posing new challenges, ESG concerns that were previously on the backburner are now front and center for many businesses, with more than two-thirds of respondents citing Covid-19 as a driving force behind their organizations’ ESG policies and practices.
The main drivers behind the adoption of overall ESG standards, according to the survey, are alignment with overall corporate sustainability strategy (65%), positive impact on relationships with customers and stakeholders (57%), social and environmental factors (48%) and regulatory obligations and pre-empting broader policy and regulato (22 percent ).
The Citi study also asked respondents to list the top three stakeholders in their organizations who are most vocal in lobbying for ESG policies and practices: Governments/regulators were ranked first by 33% of respondents, followed by investors (21%), and customers (12%). (20 percent ).
When asked to identify the top three sustainable and green finance instruments that they were most interested in or exploring, green bonds came out on top with 22% of the vote, while ESG-linked working capital financing was chosen by the majority of respondents (42%) as one of their top three options.
The survey of 259 institutional clients in 14 markets across Asia-Pacific was undertaken in the first quarter of this year to better understand how they were adopting the ESG agenda. According to Citi, the majority of these respondents work at senior levels in their companies, with 16 percent serving as chairmen, presidents, or CEOs, 24 percent as other C-Suite executives, 26 percent as managing directors and directors, and 28 percent as senior vice presidents and vice presidents./n
