Bimonthly Asia Sustainability Regulatory Roundup: March - April 2025
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ESG Reporting

Bimonthly Asia Sustainability Regulatory Roundup: March - April 2025

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March and April 2025 saw a wave of strategic sustainability policy moves across Asia that spanned diverse themes—carbon removal, carbon offsetting, carbon pricing, carbon accounting, circular economy, renewable energy, ESG disclosures, and sustainable finance. This bimonthly roundup distills the most critical updates to support executives making informed decisions.

Key Insights

March and April 2025 saw a wave of strategic sustainability policy moves across Asia that spanned diverse themes—carbon removal, carbon offsetting, carbon pricing, carbon accounting, circular economy, renewable energy, ESG disclosures, and sustainable finance. This bimonthly roundup distills the most critical updates to support executives making informed decisions.

Key Insights

  • ASEAN: Sustainability momentum is rising with countries striving for leadership and capital. Malaysia has released the region’s first regulation on Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technology. Thailand plans to offer the region’s most generous corporate emissions offset cap at 15% and provide tax incentives for ESG fund investments. Indonesia has updated its sustainable finance taxonomy. The Philippines has proposed a Climate Finance Strategy to mobilize green capital.
  • China: New measures seek to strengthen its green trade readiness amid rising environmental standards and expectations in export markets. China has expanded the national emissions trading system (ETS) to include three high-emission sectors, introduced new standardized greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting and voluntary corporate GHG disclosures, and promoted the Green Electricity Certificate (GEC) market.
  • India: A flexible, phased approach should ease ESG disclosure compliance. Revised guidelines from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) have introduced flexible assurance options, delayed mandatory value chain disclosures by one year, and encouraged voluntary green credit reporting.
  • Japan: A coordinated suite of measures will contribute to the national Green Transformation (GX) strategy. Carbon pricing mechanisms will be implemented via an ETS (FY2026) and a GX surcharge (FY2028). New circular economy initiatives will impact manufacturing and product design. IFRS-aligned sustainability disclosure standards have been finalized, laying the foundation for future mandatory reporting.
  • South Korea: Significant steps are taken on renewable energy development and sustainability reporting. A new law streamlines and accelerates offshore wind deployment to improve corporate access to clean power. Draft Korean Sustainability Disclosure Standards (KSDS) set the path for mandatory ESG reporting post-2026.

Author

Minji Xie

Minji Xie Minji Xie

Senior Researcher, China Center for Economics and …
The Conference Board

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