Governance and Sustainability Reporting Frameworks and Enablers

The Centre for Governance and Sustainability (CGS) aims to spearhead relevant and high-impact research on corporate governance and corporate sustainability that are pertinent to institutions, government bodies and businesses in Singapore, ASEAN and Asia Pacific. The Centre was established in 2010 and was formerly known as Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations.

CGS, formerly known as Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations (CGIO), embarked on sustainability reporting (SR) research as far back as 2014 in anticipation of a growing trend and development in sustainability and green finance. The first SR report was released in 2015.

A year later, in 2016, the Singapore Exchange specified that companies would be expected by the financial year ending on or after 31 December 2017, on a ‘comply or explain’ basis, to submit SR reports in its annual financial reports. This move from voluntary reporting marks the appreciation of market expectations and growing demand for businesses to communicate their commitment to ESG factors in their business strategy and practices.