The work must start now to promote the adoption of pro-green measures through environment, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, say the chief executive officers of three regional media powerhouses following the launch of the Asia ESG Positive Impact Consortium (A-EPIC) on Friday (June 21).
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NewsTranscript
00:00Again, we're going to be limiting any questions for our press conference with regards to our
00:05event for today.
00:06With today's formal launching and with the group of attendees with us today, you can
00:14see the idea is quite well received in the marketplace.
00:20I'm pleasantly surprised with so many technical representation attended this particular forum.
00:29I think that is a silent endorsement and a testament for this good cause of program.
00:37I hope that with today's formal launching, we will definitely intensify the acceptance
00:47and also adopt the principle and practices of ESG to reach a wider community.
00:57Just like what Andy has just now said, the achievement so far, only below 20%, there
01:05are a long way for us to catch up.
01:09So I always think that it is something that is not for somebody to wait, but rather for
01:15all of us to catch up.
01:17That is my view.
01:18Yes, I think impact is the main matrix, because I think it can be understood that every company
01:25will have certain ESG initiatives that they've been doing.
01:29For example, in Indonesia, every public company is, by regulation, they have to have a sustainability
01:36report.
01:37That means they have to perform some sort of sustainability initiatives.
01:41But again, at the end of the day, what matters is impact, how the initiative impacts society.
01:49That's why it's Asia ESG Positive Impact Consortium.
01:55The measurable KPI for success of our consortium should be how does ESG initiatives across
02:03the Asia-Pacific actually have positive impacts on the region.
02:07Again, if we're talking about goals, 2015, the United Nations, all countries of the United
02:13Nations already adopted the SDGs goals, 17 goals, and we are only 15 per cent on track
02:18so far to achieve what's supposed to be achieved by 2030.
02:23So only six years left, but only 15 per cent of the goals are on track.
02:28In fact, there is a report that it will actually take another 32 years to achieve what was
02:34going to be achieved, what was targeted to be achieved back in 2015.
02:40I think impact should be one of the main KPIs of how we see our consortium contributing
02:49to the Asia-Pacific ESG or SDG progress.
02:54On a daily basis, we carry out our task of informing the public.
03:00So with this consortium, we're taking it one step further.
03:05So we're focusing on a topic that's important to the Philippines and the rest of Asia, and
03:17educating them about the importance, how critical ESG principles are.
03:24The overall objective is to really use our collective reach to reach, to talk to a broader
03:34audience, and over time, drive action that will create solutions that will allow us
03:43to achieve sustainable practices.
03:47From a media perspective, our biggest power, so to speak, is really our ability to influence,
03:55inform, and move the communities.
04:00In our respective countries, we saw the gaps, and we realized just communicating within
04:06our own countries are just not enough.
04:09Why we started with Indonesia and Philippines?
04:12Because we are very strong trade partners, and we all know ESG is a prerequisite of trade.
04:19We need to get our ESG right before we can talk about economic growth.
04:26At the same time, we realize in the communities that we have, people struggle to even get
04:32basic information.
04:33People struggle to understand jargons.
04:36Collaboratively, across the three media powerhouses, we had our first editorial meeting discussing
04:44about content that we can run deliberately across the different countries to educate.
04:50For example, topics on poverty, topics on environment, and engaging in research on how
04:59we can improve the livelihood of the rakyats in our respective country.