The Asia Business Council conducted its annual survey of members in July 2023. Nearly half of the respondents show a growing optimism about business conditions in the upcoming year, anticipating Asian economies will continue to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, economic challenges are at the forefront of their minds, with concerns about inflation, followed …

Asian cities are significant contributors to climate change. Cities in the region are also hubs of economic activity, centers of financial capital and talent, and incubators of innovation and progress. The report offers frameworks, recommendations, and case studies to illustrate how cities could leverage their unique strengths and evolve their development models to concurrently pursue climate resilience, poverty reduction, and biodiversity protection goals.

At the COP27 meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, climate negotiators laid out a plan to implement the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The private sector must play a role in meeting climate targets and can build on that momentum. With this statement, Asian business leaders have committed to taking climate action and to safeguarding and managing nature sustainably.

The Council also conducted a survey (see box on the left below) to understand what drives corporate climate action in Asia, and what policies could accelerate decarbonization. See below for more on the key policy drivers we identified, and why we believe climate change should be a core part of the region’s economic growth strategy.

As Asian economies face recession worries, many are putting climate action on the back burner – but climate resilience goes hand in hand with economic stability.

Asia’s economic growth and development have been unparalleled over the past 75 years. Poverty has declined continuously and more rapidly than at any time in recorded history, and significant welfare gains have been achieved. These achievements have been driven by Asia’s growing participation in international trade and global value chains, which underpin the globalization process. More broadly, globalization refers to the integration of economies that has been achieved through growing levels of international trade, finance, and investment, and through the mounting exchanges of people, ideas, and data.

Increasing supply chain resilience in Asia can help blunt the worst effects of climate change, improve biodiversity and closed loop thinking, and even help eradicate the scourge of modern slavery.

Blunting the impact of climate change is our time’s greatest challenge. The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate pledged to keep the rise in global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The overall Paris pledge is the sum of individual country pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), to drive decarbonization. But, …

Chloris Jiaqi Kang, from the National University of Singapore, writes that addressing key challenges facing sustainable financing in private equity can help channel more private money for the public good in Asia. Given their unique combination of risk capital and operational expertise, private equity funds are well positioned to use equity to create the best …