More than a third of companies are planning to start issuing or utilising sustainable financing over the next year to achieve their decarbonisation targets, new research has found.
Thanks to recent changes, sustainable finance players can soon access greater clarity on definitions and data to track and measure organisations’ progress towards ESG goals, which was a proven market barrier to accessing green or social funding.
According to a Westpac-sponsored report, 25% of sustainable finance issuers and 23% of investors ranked the issue as the biggest obstacle to their use of sustainable finance and investing, The West Australian reported.
But with the release of a global set of sustainability-related disclosure standards in coming months by the International Sustainability Standards Board, this could be changing.
“Over one third (35%) of companies plan to issue or utilise sustainable financing for the first time in the next year and 47% of investors expect to have between 50% to 100% of their (assets under management) allocated to sustainable investments in three years’ time,” the Westpac report said.
Meanwhile, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is also working through jurisdictional challenges to its Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance, which was released at COP26 in Glasgow last November, The West Australian reported.
