Helping ASEAN shape sustainability reporting

In 2025, the ASEAN sustainability reporting landscape was at an inflection point with risks for the long-term aim of regional economic integration. While some member states had already signalled alignment with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards and were making real progress towards implementation, others were still considering whether, when and how to commit to a national roadmap. That created both momentum and fragmentation: progress was visible, but it was uneven.

This was exactly the context in which ACCA’s partnership with the ASEAN-Business Advisory Council Malaysia (ASEAN-BAC) became valuable. Signed in March 2025, the memorandum of understanding creates a useful platform for ACCA to contribute technical insight and regional knowledge to ASEAN-BAC Malaysia’s policy and business engagement. This was especially effective during Malaysia’s year as the ASEAN Chair and sustainability reporting quickly emerged as one of the clearest areas where that added value could be demonstrated.

The partnership with ASEAN-BAC Malaysia gives this work a stronger platform. ASEAN-BAC is the apex private sector body created by ASEAN leaders to provide private sector input to ASEAN’s economic integration agenda. Working with the Malaysia chapter during its Chair year meant ACCA’s technical work could be channelled into live regional policy conversations.

The key question is how ASEAN can avoid a patchwork of requirements that raise compliance costs, complicated cross-border business and risked leaving smaller companies struggling to keep up. This is where ACCA’s emphasis on ISSB as a global baseline, implemented with proportionality and a ‘building-blocks’ approach, becomes especially relevant.

In July 2025, ACCA published Sustainability Reporting in ASEAN: An overview of current developments. The report maps the reporting landscape across all ten ASEAN member states, looking at regulatory context, current frameworks and implementation challenges. It argues that ASEAN should use ISSB standards as a global baseline, while allowing jurisdictions to add local requirements where necessary. It also highlights the need for stronger professional capability and supporting infrastructure as implementation gathers pace.

This gives policymakers and market participants a clearer picture of where the region stands, while also translating a complex technical agenda into practical recommendations. The report advocated for national ISSB roadmaps, stronger professional education and capacity building, better infrastructure for disclosures and data sharing, and a larger ASEAN voice in global sustainability reporting discussions.

What gave the work added impact was the speed with which it moved beyond the report itself. Shortly after the report’s release, ACCA and ASEAN-BAC Malaysia helped launch the ASEAN Sustainability Reporting Advocacy Collaborative (ASRAC) Statement. Unveiled at the Singapore Business Federation’s 2025 ASEAN Conference, the Statement called for ISSB adoption as a global baseline, supported a building-blocks approach, argued for proportionality for businesses including SMEs, and highlighted the need for capacity-building and better regional coordination. ACCA’s report acted as the technical foundation for the Statement.

Not stopping at publishing the research, the report fed directly into a wider advocacy platform, and the momentum quickly extended beyond Malaysia, with ASEAN-BAC Singapore and the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) also endorsing the initiative. It suggested that the conversation ACCA helped to shape was beginning to resonate across ASEAN institutions and partners.

For policymakers, this is a useful example of how a professional body can support regional decision-making in a practical way. ACCA did not simply call for ‘more’. It helped frame an ambitious but workable path through a real policy problem: how to support convergence around global standards without ignoring differences in market readiness, institutional capacity and business size.

For ACCA members, the story is also important. It demonstrates that the profession’s expertise has a place in live regional policy debates, especially where implementation is as important as ambition, and where private sector practitioners are often the pioneers of adopting new standards. 

The impact did not end in Malaysia and Singapore. The report was also presented at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit and at Eco-Business’s Unlocking Capital for Sustainability Philippines 2025 event in Manila, with its audience of key stakeholders including national regulators. The latter was no accident: platforming the work to the incoming ASEAN chair nation gave the work a further layer of relevance. A partnership that began under Malaysia 2025 was already informing discussion ahead of Philippines 2026.