With over 675 million people living in 11 countries in Southeast Asia (SEA), 1,200 active languages being spoken and a treasure trove of thousands of cultural nuances, the region is among the most diverse communities in the world. It also represents one of the most promising regions for the future of green energy and one of the most challenging regions in addressing modern slavery.
This positions SEA as an important, albeit complex, ecosystem in the global Sustainability and ESG landscape. Three key characteristics define the development of SEA today – a heavy reliance on natural resources for economic growth, increased exposure to global markets and increased urbanisation. The ability to manage thes characteristics in the face of the global need for a lower-carbon, higher-equity and well-governed countries will define the success of SEA in the coming decades.
The Corporate Sector Needs to Drive Towards a Sustainable Southeast Asia
The corporate sector will play a key role in driving Sustainability in the region and in enabling a just transition. With the wide range of the sector’s roles, there are various levers to impact change – including selective financing, product innovation, new service offerings, business process improvements, responsible procurement, employee well-being, and the list goes on.
Companies are also beginning to understand the risks and opportunities posed by Sustainability. The main sources of fiscal and business operations risks are from the rapidly increasing number of regulatory requirements, customer demands of their supply chain and investor screening practices. On the other hand, business opportunities have never been more clearly defined than now, with the increasing needs of the transition economy.
TIG Seeks to Support Capital Markets in Three Ways
Focus 1: Enabling the Enablers
Driving the ecosystem is the heavy responsibility of a few select players including – among others – national regulators, institutional investors and large financial institutions. TIG works with these entities to provide support in designing deliberate policies, rolling out effective interventions and measuring on-the-ground impact.
Focus 2: Mobilising the Masses
Moving large numbers of high-impact companies is going to be one of the most effective ways to
propagate Sustainability across the corporate sector. This ability is held by entities with recognised influence over stables of companies, most notably large companies with wide and complex supply chains. TIG works with these companies to help evaluate, strategise and design Supply Chain Sustainability Programmes to move companies towards responsible sourcing and sustainable supply chain practices together with their suppliers.
Focus 3: Innovating Impact
One of the offshoots of the Sustainability movement in the corporate sector is accelerated innovation within the companies, as well as in collaboration with academia. The strive to be greener and more equitable will need new and revolutionary ideas. TIG works with companies to overlay practicality and implementability onto some of the most feasible ideas that might revolutionise the ability to bring positive environmental and social impact.
All Hands on Deck for a Sustainable Future
In the face of our global community’s clarion call for a more sustainable world, TIG is appealing to institutions and companies in the region to champion Sustainability in an urgent and at-scale manner. It’s going to take every available resource to solve this global issue. Let’s get this right together.
Tig works with companies to overlay practicality and implementability onto some of the most feasible ideas that might revolutionise the ability to bring positive environmental and social impact
Thoughts In Gear (TIG)
TIG was founded a decade ago to provide Sustainability and Social Impact consulting to corporations. The focus on achieving impact through the corporate sector is based on the belief that companies have huge potential to solve some of the world’s largest problems. This can be achieved through a shared value lens of profitable and purposebased businesses. TIG has executed many successful projects through strong collaboration with its clients – including a stock exchange, a securities commission, a central bank, regional multi-national companies and many local companies of all sizes.
TIG’s achievements include setting up Southeast Asia’s first Sustainability Accelerator with 100 listed companies, producing Asia’s Best Sustainability Strategy and Report, setting up Southeast Asia’s largest Collective Impact Initiative for education, producing a Harvard-commended SROI Analysis, and producing a COVID-19 Vaccine Management Country Guide that has been used in 8 countries around the world. In this decade, TIG has also developed proprietary products to help companies strategise, implement and report on their Sustainability journey. One of their products is Sustainadata, the Corporate Sustainability Toolkit.
Sustainadata
Sustainadata is a Corporate Sustainability Toolkit that simplifies and standardises Sustainability management in a company. This encompasses two aspects – firstly, within a company’s own Sustainability journey consisting of its business strategies, processes and resources; and secondly, within the company’s supply chain consisting of the Sustainability adoption of its many suppliers.
Margie Ong, CEO, Thoughts In Gear (Tig)
Margie Is The Ceo Of Thoughts In Gear (Tig). Graduated An Electrical Engineer, Margie Has A Sustainability Leadership Certification With The London Business School. Margie Has Also Worked With Notable Organisations Like The Boston Consulting Group (Bcg), Erm Consulting, Intel Technologies, Hcl Technologies And The Cimb Foundation. In A Voluntary Capacity, Margie Is In The Advisory Group For Sunway’s Centre For Planetary Health (Scph), An Emissary For Responsible Finance And Investments Foundation (Rfi) And A Committee Member Of The Esg Committee Of Kls Chinese Chamber Of Commerce And Industry (Klsccci).
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