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While environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives have long been associated with Western-centric connotations, the rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape has helped to open the door to Asian dominance in matters relating to sustainability.
IDC data suggests that over 66% of regional companies have increased their ESG investments despite key macroeconomic challenges, underlining the commitment to sustainability resonating particularly well with Southeast Asian nations.
At a time when the return of Donald Trump has seen more Western firms dial back their sustainability commitments, we could be set for a new age of clear dominance for Asia’s clean energy initiatives and ESG commitments.
Changing Geopolitical Tides
Asia’s sustainability opportunity comes amid the perfect geopolitical storm for global sustainability.
In a bid to boost its struggling economy, China introduced a stimulus scheme focused on generating growth across a variety of sectors in mid-2024.
Early data suggests that the stimulus scheme for consumer goods trade-ins has boosted the consumption growth in China throughout the past year by more than 1%, according to Vice Commerce Minister Sheng Qiuping.
As a result, sales of cars, appliances, electric bicycles, and various other products under the scheme reached 1.3 trillion yuan ($179.45 billion), in a timely rise for retail sales growth.
During China’s Golden Week in early October 2024, the arrival of stimulus packages paved the way for some electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers to post record orders throughout the national holiday, helping to underline the potential that a rise in consumer spending power holds for regional ESG initiatives.
Across the Pacific Ocean, it’s a different story. The resounding US Presidential election victory of Donald Trump on November 5, 2024, brought a wave of ESG skepticism to the West and Wall Street.
Trump’s immediate withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement upon his inauguration and the pledge towards “ending Biden’s policies of climate extremism” has signaled a slowdown in America’s sustainability commitments.
The President has also pledged that anyone investing $1 billion or more in the United States would receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including all environmental approvals.
With Trump in office for the next four years, Asia will be presented with a golden opportunity to become an ESG leader at a time when the US is set for significant deregulation and a rollback of DEI programs that could undermine Western firms’ focus on sustainability.
Futureproofing Asia
The necessity of preparing for climate change is helping to drive Asian commitments further. Data suggests that the continent could be prone to a three-to-four-times increase in extreme precipitation events, three-times more severe typhoon precipitation, droughts that could occur up to 60% of the time in China, and 86% of the region exposed to lethal heatwaves by 2050.
While these insights are highly concerning, the region is well-positioned to address these dangers and build a green infrastructure that protects against the impact of climate change.
There’s plenty of evidence of this trend already taking shape. In 2023, the Asia-Pacific region issued $235 billion in green, social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked bonds, representing a 24% share of the global total.
Nations like China were a driving force in the movement, accounting for $54 billion of the total issuance in the APAC region. While this represents a significant shortcoming of $800 billion to reach Asia’s annual $1.1 trillion total for its green transformation, the arrival of stimulus throughout the Chinese economy could be a catalyst for an acceleration of ESG initiatives regionally.
With China’s share of the global electric vehicle market reaching 76% in October 2024, it’s clear that the nation will be a driving force in the sustainability landscape, and is well-positioned to become an automotive powerhouse should Gartner’s predictions about EVs becoming cheaper to produce than their petrol counterparts by 2027 come to fruition.
Rising Above Greenwashing
Long before Trump’s return to the White House, US ESG initiatives were under pressure due to ‘greenwashing’, which became rife on Wall Street as firms sought to use unfounded environmentally-focused buzzwords to exaggerate their commitment to environmental, social, and governance credentials.
If these similar bogus claims become commonplace among Asian firms, we’re in danger of seeing ESG stocks struggle in key regional exchanges.
Although the pace of ESG litigation in Asia isn’t yet as stringent as the US or EU, we’ve seen evidence that stakeholders are on hand to take action on instances of greenwashing while regulators have repeatedly emphasized their guidance for tackling the practice.
Embracing a Sustainability Revolution
At a time when the West appears to have severely scaled back its ESG commitments, we’re seeing fresh evidence of Asia’s emphasis on sustainability not only increasing but paying dividends in the case of consumer spending in China, which could impact the worldwide market.
The remainder of the decade will be a pivotal period for the sustainability boom, with emerging technologies lowering costs to make ESG firms capable of competing with their more traditional rivals. This makes China’s stimulus packages a beneficial development for the entire region at a time when a dominant market share could pave the way for long-term global leadership across a number of industries.
We’re on the precipice of a sustainability revolution, and Asia has a golden opportunity to take full advantage of it.
