Joyce Ong

Partner, Lee Hishammuddin Allen & Gledhill

Joyce is a partner at one of the largest law firms in Malaysia. She is experienced in advising on high value transactions across the energy, infrastructure, M&A and ESG landscape. Her practice focuses on front-end project development, energy projects and strategic investments. In addition to her transactional work, she also started the firm’s ESG practice, advising on carbon capture projects, sustainability governance frameworks and emerging regulatory requirements. Joyce also has an active corporate and commercial practice, where she focuses on mergers and acquisitions (M&As), particularly in the private equity sphere, as well as franchise regulations.

Contributed to

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ESG in Malaysia

Practice Notes

Executive narrativeMalaysia’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) regime is best understood as being led by capital markets disclosure, with a high execution risk around environmental compliance, driven by permitting, pollution controls and structured sustainability reporting, accompanied by assurance requirements. There is also a second enforcement lane that sits in consumer and trade description law, targeting misleading marketing claims.For most multinationals, the practical centre of gravity lies in three areas:•sustainability reporting expectations set through the National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF) and Bursa Malaysia (Bursa) listing rules•Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) climate/taxonomy expectations for financial institutions and financed-emissions conversations, and•the Department of Environment (DOE) permitting, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) gating and scheduled-waste controls for operational assetsReporting and disclosureOn disclosure, Malaysia has moved decisively to align with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) baseline. The NSRF (announced 24 September 2024) sets IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 as the baseline sustainability disclosure standards, with phased coverage across listed issuers and certain large non-listed companies. This

Environment