The Cooler Earth Sustainability Summit 2020

Climate change and social inequality are driving issues such as biodiversity loss, disappearing coastlines, disruptive protests, to name a few. These pose risks to communities and businesses including the financial sector that are too large to ignore. Extreme weather events in Malaysia in 2017 caused more than USD7.2 million in damage. PG&E, owner of California’s largest electric utility, recorded a $10.5 billion charge following the Camp Fire, and in 2019 faced one of the largest bankruptcies in history attributed directly to climate change. 27.2 million acres of land have been burned in the 2019 Australian fires. Early this year, for the very first time, a European bank saw its shareholders file a Climate Change Resolution against it, demanding divestment from carbon-intense industries. 

The climate emergency movement has reached a tipping point. Millions of youth activists in cities worldwide took to the streets last year to protest government and corporate inaction over the climate crisis. 1,400 local governments in 28 countries have declared a climate emergency or formally recognised climate change as a threat of national concern. Countries from the UK to Papua New Guinea have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. Meanwhile, Bank Negara Malaysia is a member of the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and has recently issued a climate change taxonomy for consultation, signalling upcoming policy changes and expectations for banks to better account for climate-related risks.

Businesses and financial institutions that will thrive in this changing world are those that are able to anticipate the financial and business risks, as well as the opportunities. A sustainable future will need businesses to look at the triple bottom-line concept – People, Planet, Profits – with a new lens. One that goes beyond a trade-off mentality to use business as a force for good and provoke significant action amid the mounting pressures related to economic, environmental, social and governance factors. This is the new growth equation. Businesses need to rethink the way business is done. This needs to happen today, not tomorrow. 

This year, The Cooler Earth 2020 will continue to ‘dialogue for action’, with a special focus on concrete steps that businesses and financial institutions can take, as well as the impact on each other that these actions will have. The hope is for the collective commitment and action to be effective in shaping a liveable planet and a desirable future – hence a “Cooler Earth”.

In fulfilling CIMB’s purpose of Advancing Customers and Society, we continue in our mission to mobilise industry experts, leaders, financiers, investors, policy- and decision-makers to change the paradigm of business and finance. Join us for thought-provoking, pragmatic and persuasive conversations with those who are championing sustainable development.