Sustainable Business Summit Singapore 2025
Corporate sustainability has reached a critical turning point. Policy shifts, economic uncertainty and a chain reaction of elections are dominating news headlines. As a result, sustainable leaders are being forced to navigate a very turbulent business landscape. So the question everyone wants to know is, what are they doing to bring long-term value to businesses today?
On July 29-30, The Sustainable Business Summit returned to Singapore to gather global business leaders and investors together to answer critical questions. They discussed everything from how to drive innovation to what it will take to scale best practices in sustainable business and finance.
Read the highlights from our program here.
Opening Night
Bloomberg Live’s Abby Danzig opened the event while Climate Impact X ’s Oi-Yee Choo and Singapore Sustainable Finance Association (SSFA) ’s Kavitha Menon, CFA alongside Bloomberg News ’s Ishika Mookerjee . The group discussion focused on what companies are doing to navigate energy, market and policy dynamics as they work to decarbonize.
They reflected on how capital is fueling the low-carbon shift in APAC and the acceleration of the region’s transition toolkit where they unpacked what’s working, what’s not and the steps investors must take to balance both innovation and integrity.
Watch the full session here.
"If you don't facilitate finance - then the finances won't move into the right projects and help to bring down cost of capital over time,"
Bangkok Bank 's Niramarn Laisathit took to the stage shortly after to share Thailand’s roadmap to becoming a low-carbon society. This included highlighting the steps they will be taking to hit their Net Zero targets.
Niramarn Laisathit detailed the many ways the region will be working towards these goals which included, reducing the cost of transportation by using fossil fuels, growing more trees to reduce carbon emission and providing consumers with loans to upgrade their housing to make them more environmentally friendly.
Day 2
The second day began with DBS Bank 's Kwee Juan Han sitting down with Bloomberg News ’s Erik Schatzker to discuss how the APAC region is approaching ESG despite the turbulent business climate.
They discussed everything from why DBS has decided to stick to their zero banking alliance - despite other banks dropping out - to the work they are doing with Korean water services in Indonesia to supply clean water to three cities in the area.
“Asia has continued to say they're committed to a lot of what they said they would do per the Paris Accord,”
Watch the full session here.
Winning The Sustainable Finance Race
Our panel talk, which was moderated by Bloomberg ’s Sheryl Lee saw Aberdeen ’s Nicole Lim, CFA , CDP ’s Dennis Wan and Fidelity International ’s Gabriel Wilson-Otto , explore the possibility of Asia becoming a global leader in sustainable finance. As politics continue to have a huge impact on ESG investing, they shared their thoughts on green hushing and why businesses in Asia are shifting their focus to climate adaptation projects.
"Asia's not sitting around waiting for politics to dictate what's important here. It has already been a leader and is continuing to be so,"
Watch the full session here.
Bangkok Bank Advisor Spotlight
Bangkok Bank ’s Chartsiri Sophonpanich sat down with Bloomberg ’s Joe Lee to discuss in depth, the work the bank has been doing to drive initiatives around sustainability. The pair discussed sustainable finance as a whole and the commitment Vietnam has made to provide 50% of households and offices with solar roofs by 2030.
Watch the full session here.
Emerging Risks Across Industries
Bloomberg ’s Conrad Tan took to the stage shortly after to share an analysis of the emerging ESG risks that have been developing globally across different sectors. Against the backdrop of political tensions and the rising pressure on ESG as a whole, Conrad Tan Tan highlighted the multilateral efforts that are being made to fight climate change.
Watch the full session here.
In Conversation with Fad'l Mohamed
Bursa Malaysia ’s Dato’ Fad'l Mohamed shared his view on Asia Net Zero by 2050 which includes doubling the renewable energy in the region to 70%. Fad’l Mohamed also spoke about the launch of the business’ new climate accelerator program and the impact Trump’s re-election has had on sustainability businesses in Asia.
"There's a lot of collaboration being undertaken to set up a common carbon framework to be able to apply inter-operability of carbon credits across the markets,"
Watch the full session here.
Forces Shaping Asia's Energy Transition
BloombergNEF ’s Fauziah Marzuki took to the stage to provide an overview on the geopolitical landscape currently shaping Asia’s energy transition period.
Fauziah Marzuki revealed that coal and oil are currently in a steady decline and it is predicted that natural gas will grow to become a necessity. As more data centers are built in response to the acceleration of AI, the energy and natural gas demand is set to skyrocket.
Watch the full session here.
In Conversation with Colin Chen
MUFG 's Colin Chen spoke about the trajectory APAC countries are on when it comes to approaching their Net Zero targets. Top of mind was the US tariff deal with Japan and the launch of MUFG’s blended finance platform GAIA which aims to help fund climate mitigation and climate adaptation projects.
"China and India represent a quarter of the world so they have a significant impact on what these deals get done,"
Watch the full session here.
Defining Asia's Energy Mix in the Era of AI
In a conversation with Google ’s Giorgio Fortunato and Equinix ’s Yee May Leong Bloomberg News ’ Stephen Stapczynski led a panel specifically on data centers and their impact on the environment. With the acceleration of AI completely transforming the energy sector in Asia, and demand skyrocketing across the continent, what can we expect next?
“We are striving to build the world’s most efficient infrastructure, and compared to only five years ago, today we can deliver six times more compute power with the same amount of energy,”
Fortunato revealed that Google’s energy demand has increased by 27% globally due to the global interest in AI.
Watch the full session here.
In Conversation with Paul Tham
CapitaLand ’s Paul Tham joined Bloomberg’s Nina Trentmann to discuss the role sustainability plays in growth strategies and risk management.
He spoke about challenges the business has been facing when it comes to hitting their target of achieving 45% renewables by 2030. This has led to them launching a sustainability challenge, where they bring together companies from all around the world and give them the chance to propose solutions that can help the business build sustainable and innovative technologies.
Watch the full session here.
In Focus: Climate Tech Startups
Unravel Carbon ’s Grace Sai spoke about the evolution of AI agents in the climate sector. She believes the sustainability industry needs AI agents now, more than ever especially when it comes to simplifying sustainability reporting.
"2025 is the year for AI agents - agents will work with humans and agents will also work with agents,"
Watch the full session here.
Bloomberg Green: What We're Watching
Bloomberg’s Aaron Clark , Sheryl Lee , Ishika Mookerjee and David Stringer closed the event with an overall look at the future of climate diplomacy. From the $300 billion per year which was pledged to help developing countries fight climate change to Brazil’s fund to protect tropical forests, the team gave an insight into what they have their eyes on in the lead up to COP30.
Watch the full session here.
Watch full sessions via the Bloomberg Live YouTube channel and learn more about upcoming events by visiting the Bloomberg Live Experiences calendar here.