The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and CDP, on March 18, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to promote sustainability disclosures and access to quality ESG data across the financial sector and real economy.
CDP is an international non-profit organisation that operates one of the world’s leading environmental disclosure systems for companies and sub-national governments. It was formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.
The organisation’s environmental disclosure system allows investors, companies and cities to measure and manage their environmental impacts. It has one of the world’s most comprehensive collection of self-reported data from companies globally, which has significant synergies with MAS’s Project Greenprint, a technology and data platform for high-quality ESG data.
According to both parties, the partnership between MAS and CDP aims to support financial institutions in their sustainable finance and investment decisions by providing access to transparent, trusted and efficient ESG data.
Through the MOU, MAS and CDP will both jointly explore the exchange of information between CDP’s disclosure system and MAS’s Project Greenprint to enhance financial institutions’ access to ESG data. Both parties will also implement capacity building programmes for corporates and financial institutions on climate disclosures.
These are done in a bid to enable financial institutions and corporates to better measure and monitor their ESG performance and impact, reads the joint media release put out by MAS and CDP on March 18.
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“As the pioneer of corporate environmental disclosure, CDP is delighted to support MAS with our wealth of data, insights and expertise. This partnership represents a major contribution by MAS in driving the growth of sustainable finance both domestically and globally,” says Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP.
“Building on the Singapore Exchange’s recent adoption of the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) among its listing requirements and the introduction of Project Greenprint, stakeholders will have access to credible ESG insights and data that can be used to accelerate the flow of sustainable financing across sectors and borders. We look forward to supporting MAS in ensuring that the Greenprint platforms are developed and operated in line with best practices in environmental reporting and management,” he adds.
Dr Darian McBain, chief sustainability officer at MAS, says, “The signing of this MOU underscores MAS and CDP’s commitment to leverage technology to help drive the sustainability agenda. Harnessing technology to facilitate trusted and efficient ESG data flows is a key component of MAS’ Green Finance Action Plan.”
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“In particular, technology solutions present remarkable potential to improve the availability, quality, and comparability of ESG data and disclosures. I hope this collaboration between MAS and CDP will empower corporates in their sustainability journeys and to align their ESG disclosures with international best practices,” adds McBain.
Photo: Bloomberg
