Sustainable Finance for Water Security through Standardized Reporting and Accountability

This session delves into leveraging global reporting standards to hold finance and investment accountable for climate and sustainability in Asia-Pacific. It emphasizes integrating water security and ecosystem resilience into the evolving landscape, fostering accountability, interoperability, credibility, and cost-effectiveness in supply chains and infrastructure projects. Moreover, it initiates collaborative regional capacity-building efforts.

This session explores how countries in Asia and the Pacific can capitalize on the alignment of global reporting standards that hold finance and investment accountable for climate and sustainability goals and commitments. The region stands as a global manufacturing powerhouse, offering a unique chance to actively shape the evolving landscape of finance and investment in water sustainability, encompassing supply chains and infrastructure projects. Financing water security and climate adaptation redefine financial institutions' strategic focuses. Against the backdrop of escalating insecurity challenges, the key lies in ensuring the delivery of commitments, propelling Asian and Pacific countries towards a water-secure future. A promising development arises as regulators in major economies and financial markets move towards standardizing financial and non-financial reporting and disclosure. This shared initiative holds finance and investment accountable for meeting sustainability and climate goals. Commitments extend to financial capital, performance, and outcomes resulting from investments. From the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Standards (CSRD) to ISSB’s S1 – Sustainability Reporting and S2 – Climate Reporting, and TCFD and TNFD to Water Stewardship, financiers and investors align their governance and management systems with these regulatory changes. For the Asia-Pacific region, capturing this opportunity has become imperative.